UNIVERSITY
OF PITTSBURGH
LIBRARY
THIS BOOK PRESENTED BY
Alumni Giving Plan
f
'^^^^'''
Miss Elixabetk J. Gveir
X903 — 1907
Miss Maty L. DuBois
190 v — 130.12.
FIVE FORMER DIRECTORS OF THE BUCKS COUNTY
HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
John S. Williams, born March 21, 1831, served also as vice-president
from Jan. 15, 1901, to the date of his death, Aug. 21. 1920. He con-
tributed one paper to the society. Thomas C. Knowles, born Sep. 7,
1846, was one of the original directors when the society was chartered in
1885, and served down to date of his death, Feb. 6, 1921, the longest con-
tinuous service of any officer of the society. Thaddeus S. Kenderdine,
born Dec. 10, 1836, died Feb. 17, 1922, contributed seven papers to the
society, the last one read by him personally at the Cuttalossa Valley
meeting, when in the eighty-second of his age. He was the author of
seven octavo books made ud of his reminiscences, travels, local history
and poetry. These books grace the shelves of our librarv. Miss Eliza-
beth J. Greir, born Feb. 16, 1831, died April 20, 1907. In 1903 she gave
the society its first gift ($2,000) toward establishing a library for the
society. Her brother, James H. Greir, bequeathed the sum of $5,000
toward the erection of the first building of the society, now called the
"Elkins Building". Miss Mary L. DuBois, born March 23, 1847, served
as a director from 1907 down to the date of her death, April 6, 1922;
she contributed four papers to our publications, and moreover could al-
ways be relied upon for faithfully attending the meetings both of the
society and of the board.
^ ^—7.
A COLLECTION OF PAPERS
READ BEFORE THE
BUCKS COUNTY
HISTORICAL SOCIETY
PUBLISHED FOR THE SOCIETY
BY
FACKENTHAL PUBLICATION FUND
1926
VOLUME V
EDITORIAL COMMITTEE
Henry C. Mercer, Sc.D. Hon. Harman Yekkes
Warren S. Ely ■ Horace M. Mann
B. F. Fackenthal. Jr., Sc.D.
V, S
Press of
The Tribune Publishing Co.
Meadville, Pa.
^
CONTENTS
Page
List of Illustrations ^'"
Officers of the Society -'^'
Changes in Personnel of Officers • ^^^
PAPERS
Dutch Settlement in Bucks County. . .Warren S. Ely 1
An Investigation of the "Giant's
Grave" Dr- Henry C. Mercer 11
Branding Cattle in Idaho Joseph C. Rca 14
Branding Cattle in Kansas in 1858. . . .Thaddeus S. Kenderdine. . . 16
C Warren S. Ely 18
Turnpike Roads in Bucks County.. <
Edward R. Kirk 20
Henry W. Gross 24
William S. Erdrnan, M.D... 28
Frank K. Swain 30
Mrs. H. S. Prentiss Nichols 33
Frank Saurman 34
Seth T. Walton 34
Dr. Henry C. Mercer 35
The "Draisiana" or Pedestrian Hob-
byhorse of 1819 Horace Wells Sellers 37
Life and Work of the Rev. Peter
Henry Dorsius Rev. W. J. Hinke, Ph.D.,
D.D •■•• 44
Gristmills of an Ancient Type,
Known as Norse Mills Horace M. Mann 68
Notes on the Norse Mill Dr. Henry C. Mercer 75
Roulet Volant or Norse Mill Rudolph P. Hommel 80
Biographical Notice of Joseph B.
Walter, M.D Dr. B. F. Fackenthal, Jr.. . . 84
Making a Dugout Boat in Mississippi . . Frank K. Swain 87
Manners and Customs of Eighty
Years Ago ^'•^iss Mary S. Woodman 90
Cupping and Bleeding George M. Grim, M.D 95
George Taylor, Signer of the Decla-
ration of Independence Warren S. Ely
101
IV CONTENTS
The Homes of George Taylor Dr. B. F. Fackenthal, Jr. . . . 113
Bucks County Women in Wartime .... Mrs. Mary Heaton 134
Historical Reminiscences of Cutta-
lossa Creek Thaddeus S. Kenderdine .... 141
Maple Sugar Making in Southwest-
ern Pennsylvania and Northwest-
ern Virginia E. F. Bowlby 172
Norse Mills of Colonial Times Frederick H. Shelton 175
Horse Hopples Henry W. Gross 186
Basket Making Grier Scheetz 190
Notes on Basket Making Dr. Henry C. Mercer 192
Basket Making in Durham Township. Dr. B. F. Fackenthal, Jr.... 196
Early Pennsylvania Pottery William B. Montague 197
Well Caves of Bucks County Miss Belle Van Sant 202
Notes on Forgotten Trades Dr. Henry C. Mercer 207
The Ringing Rocks of Bridgeton
Township Dr. B. F. Fackenthal, Jr 212
Our Local Flora John A. Ruth 222
Biographical Notice of Clarence D.
Hotchkiss Warren S. Ely 232
An Ancient Indian Pipe from Bucks
County Dr. Henry C. Mercer 235
The Divining Rod in Bucks County. . .Horace M. Mann 239
Wafer Irons Dr. Henry C. Alercer 245
Octagonal or So-called "Eight-
Square" Schoolhouses Alden M. Collins 251
Early History of Bedminster Town-
ship William H. Keichline 261
Biographical Notice of John A. Ruth.. Dr. B. F. Fackenthal, Jr 275
Shad Fishing in the Delaware River. . Horace M. Mann 279
Growing, Treating and Drying Flax.. Elijah R. Case. C.E., M.S... 282
Wool Combing by Hand William B. Montague 284
Octagonal or So-called "Eight-
Square" Schoolhouses Warren S. Ely 290
Sketch of Dr. Jonathan Ingham John Hall Ingham, Esq 308
Broom Making by Hand Grier Scheetz 312
Ancient Methods of Threshing in
Bucks County Dr. Henry C. Mercer 315
Passing Events (Paper No. 1) Frank K. Swain 324
CONTENTS V
Figurehead of Chief Tammany from
the Old Ship-of-the-Line. Dela-
ware Col. Henry D. Paxson 339
Bucks County Samplers Mrs. William R. Mercer. . . . 347
History of Church's School in Buck-
ingham Township Mrs. Clayton D. Fretz 357
Old Methods of Taking Fish Warren Fretz 361
Earlj' History of Washington Cross-
ing and Its Environs Warren S. Ely 376
A Lost Stoveplate Inscription Dr. Henry C. Mercer 388
The Making of Felt Hats Horace M. Mann 401
Passing Events (Paper No. 2) Frank K. Sw-ain 407
Old Household Industries Mrs. Florence Kirk Blackfan 418
The Wire Fabric Industry in America. . Louis C. Beers 423
Old Fences in Bucks County Henry W. Gross 429
Col. Arthur Erwin and James Fenni-
more Cooper's Novel "Wyandotte
or the Hutted Knoll" Dr. B. F. Fackenthal, Jr. . . . 433
Old-Fashioned Garden Flowers George Mac Reynolds 446
Wells and Pumps in Bucks County .. .James H. Fitzgerald 454
The Early Courthouses of Bucks
County Mrs. Mary T. Hillborn 4^1
The Lowther Family of Buckingham. . Mrs. Ada Lowther Wilkinson 465
Notes on Adobe Bricks Horace M. Mann 471
Discussion of Mr. Mann's Paper on
Adobe Bricks Dr. Henry C. Mercer 476
The Zithers of the Pennsylvania
Germans Dr. Henry C. Mercer 482
The Path that Led to the Indian
Village of Play wicky Matthias H. Hall 497
An Attempt to Find the Site of
the Indian Town of Playwicky. . . . Dr. Henry C. Mercer 500
The Old Heath Mill and Its Early
Owners Capt. R. C. Holcomb, (M.C.)
U. S. N 508
The Dating of Old Houses Dr. Henry C. Mercer 536
The Laux Family of Bucks County,
Penns}'-lvania Hon. James B. Laux 550
The Origin of Log Houses in the
United States Dr. Henry C. Mercer 568
VI CONTENTS
The Ferry Tract at New Hope, Pa.,
and Coryell's Ferry in New Jersey. . Capt. R. C. Holcomb, (M.C.)
U. S. N 584
Tobacco and Its Culture in Bucks
County Grier Scheetz 612
Remarks on Mr. Scheetz's Paper on
Tobacco Culture Dr. B. F. Fackenthal, Jr. . . . 621
Early History of Neshaminy Presby-
terian Church Warren S. Ely 624
Recollections of Tennent School Dr. Henry C. Mercer 631
Schoolboy Memories Hon. Harman Yerkes 641
The Old York Road Capt. R. C. Holcomb, (M.C.)
U. S. N 650
The Samuel Hart Collection of
Manuscripts, 1777-1877 Warren S. Ely 717
The End of Open Fir> Cooking in
Bucks County Frank K. Swain 732
Life Near Grand Rapids, Michigan,
in 1850 Edward Bradford Thomas. . 734
Hunting, Trapping and Fishing in
Bucks County Thaddeus S. Kenderdine. . . . 736
Random Notes on Forgotten Trades.. Dr. Henry C. Mercer and
Horace M. Mann 740
Andrew Ellicott, The Great Surveyor. .Warren S. Ely 745
The Last of the File-Makers Henry K. Deisher 751
The Colonial Carpenter Dr. Henry C. Mercer 755
History of the Lucy M. Burd In-
dustrial School Miss Lucy M. Burd 756
Herbs and Plants Used for Medicinal
Purposes by Colonial Settlers Miss Julia B. Abbott 763
The Proctor Family of Upper Bucks
County Prof. William H. Slotter... 766
ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
Portraits of Five Former Directors Frontispiece
Dutch Reformed Church, Churchville, Pa 10
Cattle Branding Irons used in Idaho, 1860-70 15
Tollhouse with Single Gate, Paxson's Corners 18
The "Draisiana" or Two-wheeled Hobbyhorse 38
Norse Hill used in Madison County, N. C 69
Norse Mill of Shetland Islands, 1880 75
Roulet Volant or Norse Mill 80
Norse Mill in the South of France, 1578 82
Portrait of Joseph B. Walter, M.D 84
Dugout Canoe from Natches, Miss 89
Cupping and Bleeding Vessels and Instruments 99
Portrait of Col. George Taylor 101
Taylor-Parsons House, Easton, Pa 113
George Taylor's Bookplate, 1778 115
Invoice for Pig Iron with Signature of George Taylor, 1739 117
George Taylor's Catasauqua Home 119
Oath of Allegiance taken by George Taylor, 1778 121
Last part of Geo. Taylor's Will, with Signatures 127
Home of Robert Lettis Hooper, Jr., at Easton, Pa 128
George Taylor's Monument in Easton Cemetery 131
George Taylor's Pistols bequeathed to Robert Traill 133
Horse Hopples in Museum of the Society 186
Palisades or Narrows of Nockamixon 212
View of Bridgeton Township Ringing Rocks 213
Cavities in Conglomerate at Monroe 213
Bluff of Conglomerate, near Holland, N. J 215
Weathered Trap Rock Boulders, with Shrinkage Cracks,
two etchings 217
Trap Rock Boulders, Swamp Creek, near Sumneytown, Pa 219
Trap Rocks at Stony Garden, Split apart by Water and
Weather Conditions 219
Giant's Causeway, North Coast of Ireland, two views 221
View Overlooking Delaware River from Top of Nockamixon
Palisades 231
Portrait of Clarence D. Hotchkiss 232
VIH ILLUSTRATIONS
Delaware Indian Wooden Tobacco Pipe, side view 235
Top View of Same Pipe — Found in Bucks County 236
Wafer Irons in Museum of the Society 245
Hexagonal Schoolhouse, Lower Saucon Township 251
Plan Showing Interior of an Octagonal Schoolhouse 254
Remains of a Stone Built Flax Dr5nng Oven 283
Spinning Wheel — Tail piece 289
Octagonal Schoolhouse, Delaware County, 1835 291
Old "Eight-Square" Schoolhouse, Wrightstown Township 291
Friends' Meeting House, Burlington, N. J., 1682-1787 292
Dutch Trading Post, Trenton, N. J 294
Plan of Octagonal Schoolhouse, Newton Square, Pa 296
Plan Showing Construction of Same 297
Flails in Bucks County Historical Society's Museum 317
Figurehead of Chief Tammany at Annapolis, Md 341
Bucks County Samplers —
1. Ruth Bradshaw, 1712 347
2. Mary Sheeds, 1806 348
3. Susan Magill, 1812 349
4. Rachel Broadhurst, 1812 350
5. Susan Schleiffer, 1816 351
6. Mary D. Richardson, Attleborough School, 1821 352
7. Susan Geary, Fallsington School, 1832 353
8. Acrostic, Composed by E. S.. A. D., 1834 354
Old Methods of Taking Fish—
Dipnet for Taking Fish 361
Spears or Gigs 362
"Schlock Isen", or Striking Iron 363
Mallets for Stunning Fish through Ice. . 364
Lamps or Torches used for Gigging 367
Throw Net for Taking Fish 367
Eel Gaff and Eel Tongs — two etchings 368
Fyke Net for Taking Fish 373
Single Brail, Scoop Net or Hommer 373
Discovery of a Missing Stoveplate Inscription —
1. "Be Not Overcome of Evil", Stoveplate 389
2. "This is the Year in which Rages — " 389
3. Fireplace of the Home House, showing Stove Hole 391
4. Fireplace showing Postament with Hole Walled Up 393
6. Pen Sketch of Five-plate Stove in Its Original Position.... 390
7. The Indian War Plate in the Museum 401
Tombstone of Col. Arthur Erwin 433
ILLUSTRATIONS IX
Zithers of the Pennsylvania Germans —
1. Seven Plectrum Zithers in the Museum 483
2. Three Zithers in the Museum 485
3. Modern German Bow Zither 490
4. Norwegian and Dutch Zithers . 491
5. Zither and Two Tromp Alarines 493
6. The Kentucky Dulcimore 494
7. Playing the Dulcimore 495
The Dating of Old Houses —
1. Wrought Iron Nails 536
2. Cut Nails, Hammer Headed 537
3. Cut Nails, Stamp Headed 538
4. Cross Section of Cut Nails after 1796 539
5. Cut Nails, L Headed and Headless 539
6. Wrought Iron Door Hinges H and HL Types 540
7. Wrought Iron Door Hinges, "Hook and Eye"
alias "Strap" Type 541
8. Cast Iron Butt Door Hinges 541
9. Plain Ovolo Door Panels 542
10. Quirked Ovola and Ogee Panels 543
11. Machine-Made Door Panels 544
12. Wrought Iron Thumb Latches 545
13. Wrought Iron Thumb Latches 546
14. Norfolk Latches 547
15. Cast Iron Thumb-Latches, afl^r 1840 547
16. Plastering Lath 549
17. Pointless Screws, before 1846 544
Taufschein of John Adam Laux, 1771 565
Laux Family Coat-of-Arms 566
Origin of Log Houses in the United States —
1. Front of Log Dwelling in Siberia 569
2. Corner of the Frost Garrison House, Elliot, Me 569
3. Corner of Fort Western Garrison House, Augusta, Me 569
4. Corner of Fort Halifax, Winslow, Me 569
5. Side View of Fort Halifax, Winslow, Me 571
6. Fort Halifax, Winslow, Maine 571
7. Corner of the Mclntyre Garrison House, York, Me 569
8. The Bunker Garrison House, Durham, N. H 571
9. Corner of the Dam Garrison House, Dover, N. H 573
10. Corner of the Gillman Garrison House, Exeter, N. H 573
11. Riggs Log House, Gloucester, Mass 573
12. Log Dwelling at Rockport, Mass 575
13. The Parks Log House, near Horsham, Pa 575
14. Indian Ridge Log House, near Perkasie, Pa 575
15. The Parks Log House, Direct View 577
16. Wismer Log House, near Plumsteadville, Pa 577
X ILLUSTRATIONS
17. Chalfont Log House, near Chalfont, Pa 577
18. Log House near Plumsteadville, Pa 579
10. Slifer Log House near Keller's Church, Pa 579
20. Darby Creek Log House 579
21. Fragments of Log House at Furlong, Pa 581
22. Log Dwelling in Province of Upland, Sweden 581
23. Log Dwelling in Province of Upland, Sweden 581
24. Log Hay Shed in Province of Harjedalen, Sweden 583
25. Old Sawmill in Province of Harjedalen, Sweden 583
Tobacco Drying House, in North Carolina 623
Ground Plan of North Carolina Tobacco Drying House 623
BUCKS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Organized November 20, 1880.
Incorporated February 23, 1885.
For Charter, Constitution and By-laws, see Vol. I.
OFFICERS
For the year ending January, 1926.
President
Dr. Henry C. Mercer
Vice-Presidents
Dr. B. F. Fackenthal, Jr. Col. Henry D. Paxson
Directors
Dr. B. F. Fackenthal, Jr Riegelsville, Pa.
Warren S. Ely Doylestown, Pa.
Mrs. E. Y. Barnes Yardley, Pa.
(Term expire.s January, 1926.)
Col. Henry D. Paxson Holicong, Pa.
J. Herman Barnsley Newtown, Pa.
Mrs. Harman Yerkes Doylestown, Pa.
(Term expires January, 1927.)
Dr. Henry C. Mercer Doylestown, Pa.
Mrs. Richard Watson Doylestown, Pa.
Grier Scheetz Bethlehem, Pa.
(Term expires January. 1928.)
Curator Librarian
Dr. Henry C. Mercer Warren S. Ely
Treasurer Secretary
Dr. B. F. Fackenthal, Jr. Horace M. Mann
Assistant Curator
Horace M. Mann
CHANGES IN PERSONNEL OF OFFICERS
Presidents
The Bucks County Historical Society has had but two Presidents
since its organization in 1880
Gen. W. W. H. Davis, 1880 to 1910
Dr. Henry C. Mercer, since Jan. 17, 1911
Vice-Presidents
John S. Wilhams, Jan. 15, 1901, to Aug. 21, 1920
Dr. Henry C. Mercer, Jan. 21, 1908, to Jan. 17, 1911
Joseph B. Walter, M.D., Jan. 17, 1911, to Aug. 18, 1917
Dr. B. F. Fackenthal, Jr., since Jan. 18, 1910
Col. Henry D. Paxson, since Jan. 15, 1921
Directors
The following changes have been made in the Board of Directors
since the publication of Vol. IV.
Col. Henry D. Paxson, January 18, 1918, to succeed
Dr. Joseph B. Walter, who died August 18, 1917
J. Herman Barnsley, June 12, 1920, to succeed
Clarence D. Hotchkiss, who died January 14, 1920
*Grier Scheetz, January 21, 1922, to succeed
Thomas C. Knowles, who died February 16, 1921
Warren S. Ely, October 14, 1922, to succeed
Miss Mary L. Du Bois, who died February 17, 1922
Mrs. E. Y. Barnes, January 20, 1923, to succeed
Thaddeus C. Kenderdine, who died April 6, 1922
Grier Scheetz died suddenly at Bethlehem, Pa., October 6, 1926.
Dutch Settlement in Bucks County.
BY WARREN S. ELY, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Churchville Meeting, May 23, 1917.)
mtnmtm^^ HE place of our meeting today is near the geo-
graphical centre of the section settled in last dec-
ade of the seventeenth, and first decade of the
eighteenth century by the descendants of the
Hollanders who founded New Netherlands in
and about the present city of New York, three-
quarters of a century earlier. It seems therefore especially fitting
that we should devote some attention to the history of these first
settlers in this section and their part in the general plan of de-
velopment of our natural resources and the building up of a new
province under the beneficent influence of Penn's Holy Ex-
periment.
Daniel Webster once said :
"There is still wanting a history which shall trace the progress of
social life. We still need to learn how our ancestors in our houses
were fed, lodged and clothed, and what were their employments. We
wish to know more of the changes which took place from age to age
in the homes of the first settlers. We want a history of firesides."
The section settled by these Dutch people was a compact but
irregularly shaped tract, comprising parts of the townships of
Bensalem. Southampton, Northampton and Middletown. The
Neshaminy creek at this point makes a wide detour to the west-
ward, penetrating the Holland tract to its centre and thereby gave
its name to the section and the first church organized therein.
It had all been surveyed and laid out in large tracts to the original
purchasers of William Penn, before its purchase by the Dutch,
but in only a few instances "had been settled on by these English
purchasers, though it comprised one of the finest and most pro-
I
2 DUTCH SETTLEMENT IN BUCKS COUNTY
ductive agricultural districts in our county. In the case of
Dutch purchases they were often made in large tracts by the
•fathers of the actual settlers, the former remaining in their na-
tive settlement on Long Island and Staten Island, or on the Rari-
tan in East Jersey or on the upper Hudson, into which sections
the Dutch settlements had expanded several years before the
Dutch invasion of Pennsylvania.
This was true of the Van Horn and Van Buskirk families.
Barendt Christian and Peter Lawrensen,^ the respective foun-
ders of these two families in Bucks county, purchased in 1703 a
tract of over 2000 acres lying along the west bank of the Nesham-
iny opposite the present site of Langhorne in the townships of
Northampton and Southampton, which was resurveyed and di-
vided between them, and purchasers of them, by John Cutler,
surveyor, in 1706, and in the following year was conveyed by
them to their sons who became the actual settlers. Barendt
Christian never came to Bucks county but died in Bergen county.
New Jersey. Peter Lawrence may possibly have settled within
the county. Christian, Abraham, Peter, Nicholas and Barendt
Van Hooren, sons of Barendt Christian, settled on this and other
tracts purchased by their father, about 1707, and the family has
been prominently identified with the affairs of Bucks county to
this date.
The Van Sandt family, descendants of Gerret Stofifelse, settled
in 1695 on large tracts of land in Bensalem purchased of Joseph
Growdon whose holdings included the whole upper half of that
township. The Van de Grifts, descendants of Jacob Lendertsen
settled in the same locality at practically the same date.
The Van Artsdalens, who settled in this section prior to 1720,
were descendants of Simon Janse, who emigrated from Holland
to New Amsterdam in 1636.
1 The date of these settlements marks an important event in the liistory of
the Dutch in America, as it was approximately the date at which the families
belonging to the third generation in this country assumed permanent sur-
names. Up to this time the surnames of the sons were their fathers' given
name, generally with the addition of se or sen. The almost universal change
at about this time is well illustrated in the families here cited. The founder
of the VanHorn family in America, was Christian Barendtse, from Horn or
Hooren, Holland, a prominent officer of New Amsterdam in 1653, who died
of sunstroke while building a tide water mill near New Castle on the Dela-
ware July 26, 1658. His widow married Lawrence Andriessen, who came
from Boosekirk, and had children by him among whom was Peter Lawren-
sen above named, who with a son of the first marriage, Barendt Christianse,
made the purchase cited. The children of both assumed the names of Van-
Horn and Van Buskirk, from the places of nativity of their respective
grandsires.
DUTCH SETTLEMENT IN BUCKS COUNTY 3
The Slacks were descendants of Cornelius Slecht, who came
from Holland in 1652, one branch migrating up the Hudson
where they intermarried with the Wynkoops, and another branch
into New Jersey whence the Bucks county settlers came.
The Wynkoop family was founded in Bucks county by Gerar-
dus Wynkoop, who came to this section in 1713 from Ulster
county, New York, and like his neighbors belonged to the third
generation in America. One of the oldest tombstones bearing a
legible inscription in the Dutch Reformed cemetery at Richboro
is that of his son Nicholas, one of the organizers of Abington
Presbyterian Church in 1714, who died in 1759. The latter was
the father of Judge Henry Wynkoop the first member of U. S.
Congress from -Bucks county, and one of the most prominent
patriots of the Revolution, a sketch of whom and his dis-
tinguished services to the county is already a part of our arch-
ives. (See Vol. HI pages 156 and 197.) The Croesen family,
whose name is now variously spelled, descendants of Gerret
Dirckse, who came from Wynschoten, Groningen, Holland in
1667, was represented here by his grandsons as early as 1711.
A granddaughter of Gerret was the wife of Malachi Jones the
pastor of the first Presbyterian church in this section, in 1714.
The Bennets, descendants of William Bennett an Englishman
who came to Long Island in 1635 and married a Dutch wife,
made their appearance in the Holland of Bucks county in the
early part of the eighteenth century, as did Jacobus and Thomas
Craven from whom the numerous family of that name are de-
scended.^
The Cornells were one of the numerous Huguenot families
who settled among the Dutch on Long Island, with whom they
intermarried. Gulliam Cornell of the third generation born on
Long Island in 1679 was the founder of the family in Bucks
county. They owned very large tracts of land in this immediate
vicinity, where their descendants are still very numerous.
Dirck Hogeland, one of the early representatives of the Dutch
element in Pennsylvania Assembly was in this section in 1721
and probably earlier. He was a grandson of Dirck Janse, who
2 It was at the house of Jacobus Craven that Rev. William Tennet first
preached to the Scotch-Irish settlers in Warwick and Warrington, while pas-
tor of the Presbyterian Church of Bensalem, near Bridgewater, and before
he founded the Presbyterian Church of Warwick in 1726, of which Craven
was one of the first trustees.
4 DUTCH SETTLEMENT IN BUCKS COUNTY
came from Hooglandt in 1657 and settled on Long Island. The
Van Pelts and Van Dyckes were here as early as 1705, and the
LaRues and Praals of Huguenot vintage appear about the
same date.
The names of nearly all these families appear on the first
roster of the Dutch Reformed Church of Neshaminy and Ben-
salem organized 1710, an account of the early history of which
is given later in the sketch.
These people represented, in nearly every instance, the third
generation of the Dutch settlement in America, and practically
all of them had been born and reared under English jurisdiction,
the Dutch territory having been conquered by the English in
1664. They were therefore less alien in character to the English
among whom they settled than either the Welsh, Scotch-Irish or
Germans, who constituted the other three elements in the forma-
tion of American citizenship in Pennsylvania. For this reason
they were called upon to take their part in local and provincial
self government at an early date and justified the trust reposed
in them.
Stoffel Van Sandt, the most prominent character in the church
government of the Dutch Colony as shown later in this narrative,
was a local magistrate from 1717 to 1727, and represented Bucks
county in the Provincial Assembly in 1721. He was succeeded in
1723 by Christian Van Horn who served almost continuously
until 1737. Gerrit Van Sandt was a representative in the ses-
sions of 1743-4, 1749-50 and 1751-2; Dirck or Derick Hoge-
land, in those of 1747-8, 1752-3 and 1754-5 ; Gabriel Van Horn in
1756-7; Henry Krewsen continuously from 1762 to 1773 Ger-
ardus Wynkoop in the Provincial Assembly of 1774-5 and in the
State Assembly of 1778-9, and Guilliam Cornell, in the latter for
1777. Leonard Van de Grift was a Justice of the Peace in
1715-16.
Nearly all the prominent families above mentioned were repre-
sented upon the rosters of the officers and members of the mili-
tary companies raised in 1747-48, 1756, and 1758, for the defence
of the Pennsylvania frontier, comprising practically the whole
membership of the several companies raised in their section of
the county. They also took a prominent part in the revolutionary
war, many of them holding commissions in the Continental army
DUTCH SETTLEMENT IN BUCKS COUNTY
and state militia. Nathaniel Van Sandt, a great-grandson of
Gerrett the founder of the family in Bucks county, was captain
of a company in the "Flying Camp" and was taken prisoner on
Long Island in the disastrous campaign of 1776. A number of
letters written by him while in captivity and the roll of his com-
pany are among our collections.
I sincerely regret that I cannot, from the meagre evidence ob-
tainable, present a vivid pen picture of these industrious, home-
loving yet energetic, progressive people in their colonial environ-
ment. From the tools, furniture and articles of clothing, trans-
ferred from the garrets of the old homesteads to the museum of
our society from time to time, and from inventories of their
goods and chattels we can form some idea of their home life
and labors.
Retaining the racial characteristics of their frugal, industrious
and adventurous grandsires, and by local environment, inured to
the exigencies of life in a primitive wilderness, they were well
fitted for the sphere of action in which their lives were cast.
Primarily agriculturists they were trained in practically all the
domestic industries so necessary to life under primitive condi-
tions. The inventories of the personal estates of decedents of
this section during the colonial period, abstracts of a number of
which are quoted below, show that each and every family was
so well equipped with the tools and appliances of the various
local vocations necessary to transform the products of the farm
and forest into food, clothing and articles of commerce, as well
as for the manufacture of the tools and appliances themselves, as
to make them practically independent of the professional artisan.
Every Dutch farm house was equipped with its weaving room
containing its "loom and tacklin" and with linen and wool spin-
ning wheels, reels, swingles, hatchels,. cards, flaxbreaks, and the
minor appliances for the manufacture of linen and woolen fab-
rics, and combinations of both, from the raw material to the
finished product. Thus practically all the clothes worn by mem-
bers of the family were produced from the soil of their own
farms and fabricated by them in the earlier days of the settlement,
before prosperity and a more intimate association with the out-
side world made them "vain and fashionable." There is abundant
evidence however that the Dutch families held to the use of the
O DUTCH SETTLEMENT IN BUCKS COUNTY
simple, becoming and durable home-made fabrics in their dress
for several generations and to a comparatively recent date.^ The
inventory of the goods of Susanna Van Horn in 1776, includes a
silk "cloke," a gold ring and Delph and Queensware. Calico
made its appearance in 1760. There was always a stock of linen
cloth, linsey-woolsey, druggett and oznabrigs as well as linen and
woolen yarn, thread and tape on hand.
In the line of food and merchantable products there was the
"cheese fatts" (vats), mortar and pestle, pot racks and chains,
powdering tubs, milk pails and other wooden vessels ; pewter
and earthenware, etc., etc.
For economy's sake, as in later days, some of the larger appli-
ances were owned in common with a neighbor or neighbors, as
1748, "His Part in ye Cider Mill ;" in 1760, "two thirds of a cross-
cut saw" and in 1777, "a right in a Dutch Fan." The first item
we find inventoried in 1745 "his one half of the Corn Mill ;"
is of interest to our president and curator who is an enthusiastic
collector of hand corn mills, and I have always argued with him
that they were probably never used to any extent in Bucks
county, for the reason that water power was plentiful, and there
were so many early water power gristmills in every locality.
Since one was in use in Middletown on the very banks of the
Neshaminy that turned at least a score of mills it might be
argued that we would find them in use anywhere in Bucks county.
"An Apple Mill and Trough" appears in 1760, and a "Bark
Stone" in 1771.
From the fact that we also find on these inventories "a small
still" and some bushels of malt, it would seem that the Dutch
housewife sought to make her men folks independent of the
local distillery and brewery for his ardent liquid refreshment. In
addition to the above we find the tools of the joiner, the tanner,
the shoemaker, smith and tailor in the inventories of the goods
of farmers. In the olden time many of the domestic craftsmen
went from house to house at regular or irregular intervals to
supply the wants of the farmer's family in the way of shoes,
clothes and utensils.
Indicative of the different values of coins, "money scales &
3 At this point Mr. Ely exhibited a full suit of home spun clothes worn
by Adrian Cornell, of Northampton, a century ago. Also a pair of wooden
shoes.
DUTCH SETTLEMENT IN BUCKS COUNTY 7
weights" are found in the possession of nearly every family.
"A Table of Black Walnut and a Form to it" is inventoried in
1725. "A Riding Chair" appears in 1749, and a "Gum shaver"
in the same year shows that the hollow gum tree was used as
a cask for malt and other necessaries. "Pigeon netts" for trap-
ping wild pigeons were quite common after 1760 or 1765.
Another fact brought out prominently by scrutinizing these
time-stained lists of goods of the country dweller among these
fertile hills and valleys is that the Dutch farmer of Colonial
times was a considerable slave holder. Many negroes were in-
ventoried. As indicating the price of human merchandise we
quote the following :
1725 Negro Woman £45— Negro children, £15, £10 and £5
(according to age).
1748— Negro Woman, £30— Negro girl 7 yrs old £20. Ne-
gro Boy, 5 yrs old, £15 — Negro Girl, 2 yrs old, £10. Negro
child 6 mos old £5.
1760 — Negro man called Mink, £75. Negro lad called Cuff,
£60. Old negro man called Futry, £30. Negro Boy £20.
The Dutch element were the latest and largest slaveholders in
Bucks county. In 1780, when the first public registry of slaves
in Bucks county was made under the provisions of the Act of
Assembly for the gradual extinction of slavery, which compelled
every owner of slaves to register them in the prothonotary's
office by a certain date or suffer the penalty of having them de-
clared free, over one-half the whole number owned in Bucks
county were held by the descendants of the Dutch families in
Northampton, Southampton. Warminster and Bensalem. Under
the provisions of the above cited law, which automatically freed
the slaves born after its passage at a fixed age, and provided for
the care of the aged, slavery disappeared in our county about 1830.
THE DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH OF NORTH AND
S0UTH.\MPT0N.
The early history of this church and of its first pastor. Rev.
Paulus Van Vlecq, is clearly set forth in a paper read before our
society last January, prepared by Rev. William J. Hinke, Ph.
D., D.D., professor of Semitic Languages and Religions at Au-
burn Theological Seminarv, Auburn, New York, one of the best
8 DUTCH SETTLEMENT IN BUCKS COUNTY
authorities of our time on ecclesiastic history. Dr. Hinke also
contributed a more elaborate article on the same subject for the
Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society, (Vol. I, pp. 11-
134), which included a full copy of the church record from the
original book in the handwriting of Parson Van Vlecq, and his
successors in charge of "The Christian Church at Chammenji
Crick."
This history is already a part of our archives, being published
in Volume IV of our papers, and we do not purpose repeating
the data therein contained, but desire to draw some conclusions
therefrom not clearly set forth though indicated therein.
While the historians of the Reformed Church of North and
Southampton, trace its history back to the organization effected
by the Dutch settlers in this region with Paulus Van Vlecq as
their pastor on May 10, 1710, they fail to realize that the church
then organized was virtually a Presbyterian church and finally
became the Presbyterian Church of Bensalem still in existence
near the Neshaminy creek on the Bristol road between Nesham-
iny Falls and Bridgewater in Bensalem township. This church,
with its original walls, bearing date 1705 is still standing. In
the graveyard there are numerous rudely marked graves, but
none of them legible to show the last resting place of the founders
of this pioneer church. It is with the intention of clearing up
this record that we review a part of Dr. Hinke's paper. Failing
to secure ordination from the Holland Synod, Van Vlecq was
licensed by the Philadelphia Presbytery when he organized the
church in 1710, though his parishioners were almost wholly Low
Dutch, and members of the Dutch Reformed Churches of Long
Island, Staten Island, and the Raritan district of New Jersey.
On his downfall and removal from Pennsylvania in 1713, the
leading families among the Dutch in this section joined with the
Presbyterians in organizing Abington Presbyterian Church in
1714, on the western border of the Dutch settlement. And when
the Neshaminy Church was revived and reorganized in 1719, by
Malachi Jones, the first pastor at Abington. they renewed their
allegiance to the old church, but when Rev. Malachi Jones died
in 1729, both churches, Abington and Bensalem, had become
largely dominated by the Scotch-Irish element that had settled
both north and south of the Dutch settlement, and the Bensalem
DUTCH SETTLEMENT IN BUCKS COUNTY 9
Church had been for years under the pastorate of Scotch Pres-
byterians. Rev. WilHam Tennent the founder of the Log College
and of Neshaminy Presbyterian Church of Warwick in 1726,
was at that time preaching there. Tennent was called to the
Bensalem church in 1721, and although he returned to his old
charge at Bedford, Westchester county, N. Y., at intervals dur-
ing the years 1723 and 1724, he was virtually pastor at Bensalem
from 1721 to 1726, the congregation being supplied by others at
intervals.
Under these conditions the Dutch seceded and again formed a
church of their own. We quote from Dr. Hinke's copy of the
old church book :
"Anno 1730, on May v30th, have been instaled as elders and
deacons, namely, Stofifel van Sandf* and Gerrit Croese as elders,
Benjamin Korsen and Abraham van der Grift as deacons, at
Sammeniji, by Cornelius Santford, Minister of the Gospel on
Staten Island."
Following this is a record of baptisms beginning with May 3,
1730, and continuing to April 21, 1737, all of Dutch families.
This is followed by "Entries made during the Ministry of the
Rev. P. H. Dorsius."
This was the real birth of the Dutch Reformed Church of
North and Southampton. In the period between 1730 and 1737
the meetings were held at the houses of the members and the
pulpit was doubtless filled by supplies from the Low Dutch
churches in New Jersey. In the fall of 1737 the Rev. Petrus
Hendrickus Dorsius was sent to them from Holland, and a church
was erected at Feasterville, of which nothing remains but a
graveyard. The oldest inscribed tombstones, now forming part
of the enclosing wall give the dates of the first burials in 1738.
They grew and thrived under a minister of their own nationality,
and in 1751 another church was erected at Addisville, now
Richboro, on the site of the chapel which is said to include a
part of the original church. With the erection of the church at
the "Bear" the title was changed to the Dutch Reformed Church
of North and Southampton. Both church buildings had grown
4 Stoffel VanSandt had been successively elder, deacon and clerk of Van
Vlecq s Church in 1710; of Abington Presbyterian Church of which he was
one of the organizers in 1714, and at Neshaminy Presbyterian Church in
Bensalem when it was revived in 1719. The other officers mentioned were
also connected with all three.
10
DUTCH SETTLEMENT IN BUCKS COUNTY
old and dilapidated by 1814, and the present church, (at Church-
ville) now remodelled, was erected to serve both branches, and
the old churches at Feasterville and the "Bear" were abandoned.
Persons now living recall the ruined walls of the old church on
the site of the chapel.
In 1858, another church was erected at Addisville, across the
road from the site of the original church and graveyard, and a
separate organization was effected in 1864.
Rev. Dorsius was succeeded by Rev. Jonathan DuBois in 1749,
DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH, CHURCHVILLE, PA.
or rather he was the next regular pastor after an interval of sup-
plies for four years. He was a great-grandson of Louis DuBois,
a native of Normandy, the pioneer and leader of the Huguenot
settlement on the Hudson in 1660. Rev. Jonathan was a first
cousin to the father of Rev. Uriah DuBois the founder and first
pastor of Doylestown Presbyterian Church. Rev. Jonathan Du-
Bois died in 1772, and in 1776 Rev. William Schenck, driven from
his charge at Monmouth, N. J., by the British, became pastor.
He was succeeded in 1780, by Rev. Matthew Leydt, who died in
1783. After another period of supplies Rev. Peter Stryker served
as pastor 1788-1794; Rev. John Bush, 1794-1797; Rev. Jacob
Larzelere, the first native pastor served from 1787 to 1828; Rev.
AN INVESTIGATION OF THE "gIANT's GRAVE'' 11
Abram Ootwout Halsey. 1829-1868; Rev. William DeHart, 1868-
1871; Rev. H. M. Vorhees, 1871-1877; Rev. B. C. Lippincott,
1871-1881 ; Rev. Samuel Streng. 1882-1891 ; Rev. Horace P.
Craig, 1891-1912, and Rev. Paul J. Strohaur, 1912-1916, com-
pletes the roster of incumbents to the present time. Much of the
information in reference to the later history I have gathered from
a little booklet issued by the church consistory, compiled prin-
cipally by the Rev. Samuel Streng, a copy of which has been pre-
sented to the Bucks County Historical Society.
The old graveyards at Feasterville and Richboro are similar
to those of other localities and denominations of early dates.
The graves of those who died prior to 1760 are marked by native
stones, without inscription in some cases, but usually marked
with the initials of the deceased and the year of their death. As
above stated the oldest inscriptions at Feasterville bear the date
1738. The oldest at Richboro are 1755 and 1757. The common
undressed native stones were followed by the dressed red and
gray sandstone, and they by the clouded marble, that preceded the
white marble of later dates. A number of tombstones at Feaster-
ville are of the greenish slabs from Edge Hill.
An Investigation of the "Giant's Grave."
BY DR. HENRY C. MERCER, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Churchville Meeting, May 23, 1917.)
IT is well known that the central part of the United States
from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, with the Missis-
sippi Valley on the west and the Alleghanies on the east, is
scattered with prehistoric mounds and earth works. If these
were built, as is now supposed, by the ancestors of the Indians
found in that region by the first white explorers, why did not the
same or similar Indians build mounds, where none are found, in
Pennsylvania east of the Alleghanies, or in New England?
Because no such mounds exist in Eastern Pennsylvania or New
Jersey, and because the prehistoric shell heaps of the New Jersey
coast are not properly mounds, it seemed desirable to investigate
a large apparently artificial mound, which has long attracted local
12 AN INVESTIGATION OF THE "gIANT's GRAVE"
attention in Bucks county, and which to the writer's knowledge,
w^as first noticed in print in 1831, when Samuel Hazard in Haz-
ard's Register of May 28th of that year. (Vol. VH, p. 349) the
same note appearing later in Watson's Annals (V^ol. H, p. 172.)
published in 1842, states that he has just received a letter from a
friend signing himself E. M., who writing from the neighborhood
of Doylestown says, "I have discovered a large Indian mound
known by the name of the 'Giant's Grave,' and at another place
is an Indian burial ground, on a very high hill, not far from
Doylestown."^
This so-called Giant's Grave, which the writer first heard of
from John S. Williams about 1897. is situated in a beautiful
region about half a mile south of Buckmanville, in Upper Make-
field township, close on the left of the road going toward Jericho
Hill, on property (1917) belonging to Samuel Bassett, since sold
to John Eastburn.
On measurement I found the mound to be three hundred and
six feet long, seventy-five wide and fourteen feet six inches high,
at its highest point.
It stands unhidden by trees in a basin-shaped hollow sur-
rounded by low grassy ridges and appearing as a long grave-
shaped rectangle, pointing lengthwise nearly east and west, and
no less evenly rounded and clear in outline, no less symmetrical,
than many of the typical earthworks of the Ohio Valley, which
when seen, strike the student with awe, not as freaks of nature,
but as the unexplained and mysterious work of unknown men.
Mr. Bassett said it had been plowed about thirty years ago and
that fifty years ago it was covered with trees from one to two
feet in diameter. I noticed several holes of the ground-hog or
wood-chuck upon the mound, and observed that the material
excavated by the animals and piled near by, consisted of loose
flat angular fragments of soft reddish shale.
Having mapped out the mound longitudinally in thirty-four
outlined areas for cross trenches, each to be nine feet wide when
completed, we began digging on August 23, 1916, in area No. 16
counting from the east. This preliminary trench five feet wide
advancing toward the center of the mound as it reached a depth
of five feet, showed conclusively that we were digging into a long
1 This doubtless refers to a small sroup of supposed Indian graves on the
Trego farm, about one mile east of Pineville on the Windy Bush road.
AN INVESTIGATION OF THE "gIANT's GRAVe" 13
ridge of stratified shale in which the rock floor tilted at an angle
of about thirty degrees north and south. The outer crust of this.
and of the mound itself to a depth of about three and one-half
to four feet, had been rotted and loosened by frost and weather,
although the fragments nevertheless retained in general the
original position of their stratification. At a greater depth than
four feet, the fragments merged into a solid rock, thus disproving
the possibility of human construction.
After finishing work at this point, we sank a shaft three feer
long by four wide in the center of the mound at the area marked
for trench No. 25. The conditions revealed were the same, save
that the solid rock was reached at less depth, namely at about
three feet.
Our third trench was opened again in the center of the mound,
in the area marked for trench No. 7 — as a rectangular shaft five
feet long and three feet wide, where the hard rock was reached
at a still less depth namely two feet six inches. Aiter finishing
these trenches, a comparison of the surrotmding country showed
similar formations of shale, rotted near the surface, which ap-
peared as out-crops along the neighboring roadside, near a ruined
house close to the southwest end of the mound, and also under
the road bed itself. But the digging in our three trenches finished
that same day, August 23, had conclusively proved that the mound
was a weathered outcrop of rock and not the work of human
hands.
Branding Cattle in Idaho.
BY JOSEPH C. REa/ LAHASKA, PA.
(Churchville Meeting-, May 22, 1917.)
LIKE a similar specimen from upper Bucks county in the
museum of the Bucks County Historical Society this brand-
ing iron (a flat bar of wrought iron twisted into the re-
versed form of the letter R with an iron socket to be inserted into
a long wooden handle) was made and used by Henry Tremmer
Rea on his cattle ranch in Payette Valley, Idaho, from 1860 to
1870. At that time the cattle ran wild on the prairie. Idaho was
then a territory. We were three hundred miles from the nearest
railroad station and the Wells— Fargo Company's coach was the
only means of transportation. This stage which made one trip
daily passed our ranch. The driver was always accompanied by
a man who sat beside him on the box with a Winchester rifle,
while at his feet was placed an iron box containing gold, shipped
by express from the mines. This was the only means of trans-
porting the treasure in those days.
The original owner of this branding iron, while engaged in the
cattle business, also raised hay for the stage company. The stages
were drawn by six horses, and hay had to be provided for them
in winter. The hay for that section was grown mostly by Henry
Rea, who brought the first mowing machine across country, on
the backs of mules from San Francisco into Idaho. There were
only two or three ranchers who raised hay, and it brought from
$200 to $300 per ton. Many people here in the east, might doubt
this statement, but they probably would not realize what it meant
then and there to feed two hundred horses at the different relay
stations some fifty miles apart between Salt Lake City, Boise
City and Portland, Oregon.
There were no Indian reservations then. The Indians trooped
about the territory in bands. This kept the few ranchers who
lived in that section at that time alert, as there were so many
massacres by the Indians. Emigrants were then slowly crossing
the Rockies from the east to settle in those parts.
1 This paper was presented and read by Dr. "W. S. Erdman, of Bucking-
ham, Pa., from notes furnished by Joseph C. Rea.
BRANDING CATTLE IN IDAHO
15
Henry Tremmer Rea, his parents and his grandparents were
among the first to leave their homes in Hunterdon county, N. J.,
for the west. Henry was then about seven years old. They
traveled over the mountains of Pennsylvania with teams, crossing
Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, the trip taking some four months.
They crossed about the time the Mormons settled in Idaho, and
A. Branding instrument of wrought iron for burning the letter R on
cattle. Used in Idaho in 1860-70. In the possession of Joseph C. Rea,
of Lahaska, Bucks County, Penna.
B. "Branding iron" for burning the letters D. R. on cattle. Prob-
ably used in upper Bucks County in the 18th Century. Found in a
load of scrap iron by Enos B. Loux. of Hilltown, Bucks County, Penna.,
and presented by him. in July, 1917, to the Bucks County Historical
Society. Size, 11 inches long.
the writer remembers an old story told by his father of how he
met Joseph Smith, the chief of the Mormons, who gave him some
religious tracts to take home and read. He was then thirteen
years of age and on his way home from school. He was im-
16 BRANDING CATTLE IN KANSAS IN 1858
pressed with the man's handsome appearance, and never forgot
him.
Henry Tremmer Rea married while in the west, and in the
seventies returned east with his family. His son, Joseph Rea,
(who has furnished the notes for this paper) when revisiting
the old ranch in Idaho, brought back his father's branding iron,
as a memento of his early childhood days.
In branding cattle they were driven into a corral, one end of
which led into a railed alley, when the animal reached the proper
place for branding, another rail was placed behind it. The iron
was heated and the animal branded on its side by thrusting the
iron through the rails of the pen. The front rail was then pulled
out and the animal let out into the field, and then another animal
took its place in the branding pen.
The Rea family is of Quaker extraction ; any one visiting
Hunterdon county. New Jersey, would still find a number of its
descendants there.
Branding Cattle in Kansas in 1858.
BY THADDEUS S. KENDERDINE, NEWTOWN, PA,
(Churchville Meeting, May 23, 1917.)
I AM one of the survivors of that diminishing group of men
who crossed the western plains to San Francisco by "prairie
schooner" along the Santa Fe and other trails, before the rail-
roads were built, and well remember helping to brand a drove of
five hundred oxen at Independence, Kansas, in 1858. about ten
years before the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad.
The Mormon rebellion had broken out and the Government
was preparing to transport large quantities of supplies for men
and animals (about eight thousand tons) by wagon twelve hun-
dred miles to the seat of war. The contract had been undertaken
by the firm of Russell, Majors & Waddell, of Kansas City,
(afterwards noted as having defaulted to the government for the
embezzlement of Indian trust funds,) who then proposed to do
the work at an outlay of $2,500,000 with four thousand seven
hundred men, ten thousand mules, four thousand wagons (manu-
BRANDING CATTLE IN KANSAS IN 1858 17
factured in the east and shipped up the Mississippi river) and
twenty-five thousand ox-yokes, bows and chains made at special
shops to equip fifty thousand oxen, most of which with their
tackle were almost given away to the Mormons on reaching Salt
Lake City after the war was over. These animals who pulled
most of the wagons at an average rate of about nine miles a day
had to be branded at Independence, Kansas, before starting.
My first job was to help at this work, of which I soon got a
severe dose. The first day we branded five hundred, and between
the unruly beasts, frightened by the smell of their burning flesh,
and my own ofifended nostrils I was glad when night came. The
preparations were a square pen capable of holding two hundred
oxen, a stall at one corner big enough for one ox, with a gate at
each end, a wood fire and a-half-dozen branding irons. The fire
was just outside the corral, and four or five of the irons were
constantly immerged therein. Eight or ten men were required to
do the branding, to heat and carry, or "pack" the irons and steer
the unruly and frightened oxen, into the branding stall. Their
lowing and cringing as the hot irons seethed their hips, (the place
for branding) was about all I could stand, but as I expected worse
before I got through the Indian country, and as my bosses were
a little impatient and addicted to strong language, I concluded to
put up with my work. In fact, though very dififerent from at-
tending boarding school, I tried to hide my emotion and to make
myself believe that this was just the kind of fun I was hanker-
ing after; particularly, as, while at Kansas City, I lost a job of
ox-driving on a Santa Fe train by reason of taking on too many
literary airs with a wagon master, and did not want to be rebuffed
again. My job was to carry branding irons from the fire to the
branding pen, and I might have lost my job from ignorance of
the Missouri language, when I was ordered to "pack" them.
This in the native lingo meant "carry" which as far as my studies
went was a word neither to be found in French, Spanish or
Latin, so that I was in some confusion, but the boss, by word
and gesture promptly "put me wise," and I soon "packed" the
ox-yoke brand from its place on the fire to the left hip of the
ox now struggling in his pen. Helping to brand the five hundred
was a tough job for me, but in consideration of the fifty thou-
sand which were branded by the contracting firm mentioned, it
was comparatively a light job.
Turnpike Roads in Bucks County.
BY WARREN S. ELY, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Churchville Meeting, May 23, 1917.)
SINCE a considerable portion of our program for this meet-
ing is devoted to the history of the local turnpike roads and
reminiscenses of toll gatherers thereon, it is well to devote
a moment to the origin of the name and a brief account of the
first turnpike road companies incorporated and operated in our
state and county.
The first toll-bar or turn-pike, probably the crude style referred
to by Mrs. Nichols, a yoeman's pike balanced on an upright stake
or post erected in the middle of the highway to stop travelers
and demand toll, was authorized by Edward III, of England in
1346 to cover the cost of keeping in repair the highway now
known as Gray's Inn Lane, London. The first turnpike road
erected by law in England was in 1663, three centuries later.
TOLL, HOUSE AND SINGLE TOLL GATE
Showing "guard rail" on the right at Aquetong, formerly Paxson's Corner,
on tne Old York Road (Lahaska and New Hope Turnpike) looking south.
TURNPIKE ROADS IN BUCKS COUNTY 19
The system, not very common in England until the reign of
George III, never gained a foothold in Colonial Pennsylvania,
the first turnpike road in our state being the Lancaster Pike
chartered in 1792. The elaborate and more or less gigantic
schemes for the development of inland navigation in the closing
years of the eighteen century, which were to make the Delaware,
Schuylkill and Susquehanna rivers navigable to our northern
boundary and connect them by canals, portages and smaller
streams with the Ohio, and the almost as comprehensive system
of opening roads to all parts of the state, was followed by the
organization and chartering by the legislature of corporations to
build and operate "Artificial Roads," over the main highways of
the state. The first of these, as above stated, was that from
Lancaster to Philadelphia. Between the years 1792 and 1828,
one hundred and sixty-eight of these companies were incorporated
and two thousand eight hundred and eighty miles of turnpike
roads were put into operation, and "the whole surface of the
state was traversed with the numerous turnpikes which extended
their branches to the remotest districts" says a correspondent in
Hazard's Register of June, 1828, (Vol. I, p. 407). ^
And he adds, "None of them have yielded dividends sufficient
to remunerate their proprietors ; most of them have yielded little
more than has been expended on their repairs ; and some of them
have not yielded tolls sufficient even for that purpose and conse-
quently in some cases have been abandoned by their proprietors."
Bucks county relying on the improvement of navigation in the
Delaware, already eflfective by the use of the flat-bottomed Dur-
ham boats along her entire frontage, and by larger freight-carry-
ing vessels over the lower half thereof, was not as active as some
other parts of the state in building these artificial roads. The
first turnpike road to extend through our county was the Frank-
ford and Bristol, from Front street and Germantown road, Phila-
delphia to the ferry at Morrisville, organized by act of assembly
of March 24, 1803, the charter being issued May 13, 1803. On
the same day an act was passed to organize Cheltenham and Wil-
low Grove Turnpike Road Company, the road terminating at
Willow Grove, outside our county, from whence it was extended
to Doylestown in 1838 and up the Yord Road a decade later.
1 See list of turnpikes authorized chartered with other statistics relating to
same, Hazard s Register of Pennsylvania, Vol. II, pp. 293 and 299.
20 TURNPIKE ROADS IN BUCKS COUNTY
The second turnpike road to enter our county was the Bustle-
ton & Smithfield, from the "Rock" at Oxford to the "Buck" in
Southampton, chartered May 1, 1804. It was extended through
Churchville to the "Bear" at Richboro and finally to Pineville
as referred to by Mr. Kirk in his History of the Turnpike Road
from Buckingham to Newtown. The Chestnut Hill and Spring
House Turnpike Road was chartered March 27, 1804, and in
1805, an act was passed to extend it over the Bethlehem Road
through Upper Bucks, and in 1806 an act for another branch
from Trewig's Tavern (Line Lexington) through Sellersville,
Quakertown and Coopersburg to Northampton Town, now Allen-
town, but no charter was issued for either until authorized by
another act in 1813. From this date until about 1838 there was
little activity in building of turnpike roads, but about the latter
date interest in them revived and toll roads were built in many
parts of the county between 1838 and the opening of the Civil
war.
Turnpike Road from Buckingham to Newton.
BY EDWARD R. KIRK, WYCOMBE, PA.
The distance between Buckingham (formerly Centreville) and
Newtown was originally covered by three turnpike roads, which
I will describe in their regular order, commencing at Buckingham.
CENTREVILLE AND PINEVILLE TURNPIKE ROAD.
On or about October 1, 1858, a number of citizens of Buck-
ingham township, met at Corson's tavern in the village of Cen-
treville to consider the possibility of constructing a turnpike road
from Centreville to Pineville. There were present at that meet-
ing, Charles B. Ely, Stephen K. Betts, Emmor Walton, J. Wilson
Kirk, Isaac C. Kirk, Andrew Craven, J. Watson Case, John W,
Gilbert, Amos W. Kirk, William T. Rogers, Jonathan Mathews,
James C. Iden, Hiram Rice and others.
The necessity of a turnpike road was fully discussed, and it
was decided to make application for a charter in the name of the
"Centreville & Pineville Turnpike Road Company," and that the
road should be capitalized at $10,000, divided into four hundred
shares of stock at $25 each. It was also decided that the rate of
TURNPIKE ROADS IN BUCKS COUNTY 21
tolls to be charged should be the same as those in the charter
granted to the Somerton & Bustleton Turnpike Road Company.
The charter was granted on April 8, 1859. The first meeting
of the board of directors was held August 15, 1859, when the
following officers were selected : William T. Rogers, president ;
James C. Iden, treasurer; J. Watson Case, secretary; Charles
B. Ely, Jonathan Mathews, J. Wilson Kirk, Stephen K. Betts,
J. Watson Case, Andrew Craven and Stephen S. Kirk, directors.
At the same meeting it was decided that the road should be laid
out forty feet in width, with a stone bed of eighteen feet, and a
summer road on one side. Plans and specifications for the build-
ing of the road were drawn and seven contractors furnished bids
for its construction ranging in price from $1,800 to $3,000 per
mile. James Gowan was the successful bidder and took the con-
tract at $1,800 per mile. The entire cost of the completed road
was nearly $12,000 with land, road-bed and toll-house. This was
about $2,000 more than the paid up capital stock, but the in-
debtedness was gradually paid ofif, later one hundred and sixty
shares were bought in by the company and cancelled, thereby
reducing the capital stock to $6,000. John K. Trego furnished
two chestnut poles for arms or gates to be swung across the road
horizontally for the gate at the base of Buckingham mountain.
These two poles or gates were in continuous use from the time
the road was opened until it was taken over by the State High-
way Department, and were then, at the solicitation of your presi-
dent, Dr. Mercer deposited in the museum of the Bucks County
Historical Society. These gates had to be swung around by the
toll-gatherer to open and close them. The gates used later at
the other toll-houses were more modern in construction, consist-
ing of a vertical bar with a counterbalance, and could be operated
by the gate keeper without his having to cross the road.
Oliver Heath^ was appointed the first toll-gatherer at a salary
of five dollars and a half per month with free use of house and
a lot of land belonging to the company. The company com-
menced to collect toll on September 1, 1860. On December 4,
1860, a committee of investigation recommended that the gate
should always be kept closed during meal time and also during
1 Oliver Heath was for .several years toll-gatherer at the Buckingham gate
on the Doylestovvn & Lahaska turnpike.
22 TURNPIKE ROADS IN BUCKS COUNTY
the night. During the period of fifty-seven years of its existence
the company had but nine gate-keepers.
The minutes and proceedings of a number of meetings of the
board show that it was an ordinary occurence to have orders
passed in favor of the treasurer for counterfeit money received
for tolls. At one meeting this amounted to $12.50 for one year.
RICHBORO AND PINEVILLE TURNPIKE ROAD.
The company building that portion of the road from Pineville
to the Anchor tavern was chartered under the name of the "Rich-
boro & Pineville Turnpike Road Company." At a meeting of
those interested in the project held at the Anchor tavern the fol-
lowing resolution was passed : "Many of the inhabitants living
contiguous to the road leading to Pineville, Plennsville and Rich-
borough were strongly impressed that an artificial turnpike road
is much wanted to accommodate the traveling community." A
petition was accordingly signed and a charter secured on August
8, 1848, eleven years before the charter was granted for the
road from Centreville to Pineville. The first officers chosen
were Samuel Atkinson, president, and Thomas Warner, secre-
tary. The contract for this road was let to Robert Scarlet at
$2,309.67 per mile. After fifty years of operation it was not a
financial success and the company decided, at a meeting held
June 4, 1902, to discontinue it and its charter was accordingly
surrendered. On April 24, 1902, an application was made to
have the charter of the Wrightown & Newtown turnpike road
extended so as to include that portion of the road from the An-
chor tavern to Pineville. Edward Tomlinson was appointed toll-
gatherer and continued in that capacity from 1902 to April 1,
1917.
WRIGHTSTOWN AND NEWTOWN TURNPIKE ROAD.
A number of the citizens of Wrightstown and vicinity being
desirous of having a turnpike road from the Anchor to New-
town held a meeting at the Anchor tavern at which it was decided
to present a petition to the legislature for a charter. The resi-
dents of the townships of Wrightstown and Newtown took a keen
interest in this project, as is indicated by the number that at-
tended the public meetings that were held. At one meeting there
TURNPIKE ROADS IX BUCKS COUNTY 23
were present fifty prominent residents from the two townships.
The charter was granted April 12, 1867.
At a meeting for organization held at the Anchor tavern July
6, 1867, George Warner was elected president; Isaac Hillborn,
secretary, Charles Thompson, treasurer, and Thomas Warner,
Charles L. Twining, George Price, James Stinson, Charles
Thompson and William B. Warner, directors. The contract for
building the road was let to Isaac Hillborn for $3,990 per mile.
The contractor to accept in part payment one hundred and sixty
shares of the capital stock at $25, per share. The road was com-
pleted January 21, 1780, and William Spencer Gore was appointed
toll-gatherer at the ^^'rightstown gate and Edward Dillon at the
Newtown gate, each to receive ten dollars per month and free
house rent for his service. Mr. Gore was a cripple and he and
his wife, Harriet Gore, continued as toll-gatherers at the Wrights-
town gate until April 24, 1900, a period of thirty years. Both of
them were always faithful in the discharge of their duties.
On November 7, 1881, the first dividend of five per cent was
declared. Unfortunately for the stockholders this company was
not a financial success. From the date of organization until it
was purchased by the State Highway Department, it paid its
stockholders an average dividend of but one and six-tenths per
cent per annum. The stockholders of the Centreville & Pine-
ville Turnpike Road Company were more fortunate, they received
an average of five and four-tenths per cent per annum from the
time the road was opened until April 1, 1917.
An explanation of the low cost of constructing these turnpike
roads, is the fact that the stone was furnished by the parties in-
terested in their construction at a minimum cost. The price of
labor ranged from sixty-two and one-half cents to one dollar per
day. The stones were all broken by hand hammers. All char-
ters required that the stones be broken so as to be not larger
than two inches for top dressing.
From the time that the roads were first opened the position of
toll-gatherer seemed to be in demand, as in nearly every case of
a vacancy there were at least half-a-dozen applicants. In a
number of cases the toll-gatherers were sworn to do their duty
faithfully and honestly.
The turnpike roads have fulfilled their mission and will soon
24 TURNPIKE ROADS IN BUCKS COUNTY
be a thing of the past, and these roads, together with the roads
leading from Doylestown to New Hope, which were freed from
tolls on May 1, and May 7, 1917, respectively, witnessed the pass-
ing out of existence, with two or three exceptions of the toll
roads system of Bucks county.
Reminiscences of Toll Gates and Toll Gatherers on Turnpike Roads.
BY HENRY W. GROSS, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
The toll houses along our turnpike roads were not large and
had no modern conveniences, but they were comfortable homes
for the toll-gatherers. The occupants were not rich in this world's
goods, but presumably honest and faithful to their trusts, some of
them were at times a little over zealous and apparently exacting.
The minute-book of one company records that if any gate-
keeper intentionally over collects he is to forfeit ten dollars which
is to be given to the poor of the township (Plumstead) and the
same minute-book says that if a person passes through the gate
and intentionally fails to pay the regular toll he shall be fined
five dollars or but half as much as the ofifending gate-keeper for-
feits. This does not appear to be quite fair.
In 1850 certain tariiTs were Ij^ cents and 2^ cents showing
that the half -cent was in use at that time. The toll for two oxen
was the same as for one horse. Stones were delivered for 25
cents a perch ; and 70 cents a day was paid for labor.
A party driving a four-horse team several times weekly, over
a newly constructed turnpike positively refused to pay toll. On
one of his regular trips the board of managers were at the gate
which he expected to pass through and he found the gate closed.
This so angered him that he unhitched his lead horses with the
intention of hitching them to the gate and pulling it down. He
had his black-snake whip with him, no doubt intending to use it
either on his horses or on the managers if need be, but wiser
counsel prevailed, the gate was not pulled down but the toll was
paid. This happened in Plumstead township about 1849.
One gate-keeper says, that the toll-house was the best home
that he ever had, although he had several dwellings of his own
later. His wife attended to collecting the toll in the day time
while he worked at his trade. He had no rent to pay and re-
ceived $6.50 in money per month.
TURNPIKE ROADS IN BUCKS COUNTY 25
Those going to or from funerals were as a rule, exempt from
paying toll, and so too were those going to or from church ; at
times they were required to name the particular church where
they intended to worship.
Apparently most persons are inclined to do what is right and
try to be fair and honest, demanding only what is right, but
there are some exceptions to this rule, some who drop behind in
the estimation of their fellow men, and no doubt often in their
own estimation. This is nowhere more in evidence than in little
transactions where a very little money is at stake.
In Hilltown township, some years ago, a positive and some-
M^hat irritable character had charge of a gate, a man of the same
disposition came along and a wrangle about the toll followed, he
threatened to cut down the gate with a nearby axe, the gate-
keeper was equally sure that he would knock him down with a
crutch.
One day about thirty years ago John came down the "Hocker-
town" turnpike with a light wagon and two horses. Five cents
toll was demanded of him. He refused to pay, and said it was
too much, that he would sooner pay five dollars than five cents,
and moved on. Later he appeared before a justice of the peace,
paid his fine and costs and no doubt became a wiser man.
A new toll gate-keeper soon noticed that a certain man was in
the habit of passing through the gate without stopping, he fre-
quently stopped, however, at the hotel near by, therefore "once
upon a time" the gate-keeper stopped him and demanded toll, he
replied that he "had not been in the habit of paying toll in that
way, but at times treated the gate-keeper at the hotel across the
way." The gate-keeper replied "If I want whisky I will pay for
it myself and you must pay your toll." Knowing the make-up
of the gate-keeper, I have no doubt that both suggestions were
carried out to the letter.
I have often wondered why so many persons do not have the
ready change, or at least have their money within ready reach
with which to pay their toll, but in the coldest weather throw back
lap-robes so as to be able to reach some inside pocket for their
money; a.lso why the gate-keepers so seldom carry change, but
trot back in the house to get it thus making two trips to collect
one toll, and keep the traveler waiting.
26 TURNPIKE ROADS IN BUCKS COUNTY
Sam was a very slow mover, hard to awaken at night when
taking his "cat-naps," Dan wanted to go through his gate and
called "Hello ! Sam" the response "Yep" came back but no Sam.
Dan's voice was stronger a second time he called, and the third
time the "hills shook." This had the desired effect but angered
Sam who retorted. "Halt du der maul." (You keep still.) This
Sam had the reputation of not being a model husband. Philip
came along one day and while paying his toll and waiting for
his change took occasion to reprimand Sam, who replied : "Du
must some brandy wine gedrunken habe." (You must have been
drinking some brandy.)
A farmer friend of mine now over eighty years old, went to
Philadelphia market with his products quite frequently during
the winter months, as many other farmers did fifty years ago.
On one occasion he started shortly after midnight, and at the first
toll-gate he handed out a one dollar bill and received what he
thought was the correct change, but later discovered that one of
the coins which he thought was a dime was a three-cent piece.
On his home trip he handed the three-cent piece to the keeper,
and asked for a dime to correct the mistake, but the gate-keeper
replied "impossible, I gave you the correct change and this three-
cent piece was doubtless stuck between the two dimes I gave you."
He took the three-cent piece and kept it. The farmer drove on,
and told me that he could not help being amused at being trapped
in that way.
Tollgates have been a hindrance to travelers, and now in the
days of automobiles and other modes of more speedy travel they
have proved a disturbing factor upon the moral attitude of the
public, as to what may or may not be right or wrong in the pay-
ment or non-payment of tolls, with the result that it has kept
the gate-keeper and a certain part of the traveling public busy
to match each other. The Mechanicsville road leading off from
the Buckingham and Doylestown turnpike, a short distance be-
yond Pool's Corner, has been made the "scape-goat" by many
who are candidates for the "Annanias Club," by reason of not
telling the truth as to the route they traveled. At the Fountain-
ville gate and also at the Turk gate some practices do not con-
form to the golden rule, but it may be charitable to know that
many of the offenders do not reside in that immediate neighbor-
hood.
TURNPIKE ROADS IN BUCKS COUNTY 27
A youthful gate-keeper said : "Air. H . went through
with his car as if the devil was after him, he had no time to
stop and pay toll." When cars are speeding, the air becomes
filled with dust and the license numbers are apt to become dirty
and not readable, and the cars soon drive out of sight. To over-
come this fraud a turnpike company in the upper end of our
county, oiled the turnpike for several hundred yards with the re-
sult that there was no dust and the numbers could be read.
Two cars were waiting at a toll-gate about two hours after sun-
set for the gate to be opened. Toll was collected from the first
car which then drove through the gate, whereupon the second
car put out its lights and quickly followed after car number one,
without paying toll. Three cars were standing in line waiting
for the gate to be opened but before opening it the toll collector
passed from car to car and collected the toll, he then opened the
gate and allowed all three to pass. The boys called him "a wise
old guy." To stop an oiTender, a prevaricator, the gate-keeper
smashed in the wind-shield and glass of a car, a lawsuit, with
lawyers fees and court costs resulted. It has been said that
"all men have their price," while I do not believe that is true, it
does seem as if the price of some is very cheap. Many travelers,
who would not think of taking what does not belong to them,
seem to think it is smart to take advantage of a toll-gatherer, or
to use over again a railroad ticket that the conductor has neg-
lected to punch.
There is, however, a better side to the majority of the travel-
ing public. Mrs. Smith says some automobile tourists who hurry
through the gate on an outward trip, to return weeks or months
later stop and pay for both ways on their return.
Some years ago a large boy gave a gate-keeper a one-dollar
bill to be changed ; the gate-keeper was somewhat dull and absent-
minded and gave him change for $5. When later he discovered
a shortage in his account of $4, he was not able to trace his mis-
take. Some years later, after having left the toll-house and living
elsewhere, a sturdy young man appeared at his door, called him
out, and returned the overpaid $4, saying that the occurrence
had given him much uneasiness. The veteran gate-keeper has
never made the young man's name public.
Dr. Frank Swartzlander gave what he thought was a nickel for
28 TURNPIKE ROADS IN BUCKS COUNTY
passing through a toll-gate, the following week the doctor passed
through the same gate again. The gate-keeper (James Gentle-
man, Sr.) explained that a mistake had occurred, and that he had
given him a $5 gold piece, which he then returned.
For twenty-eight consecutive years Israel Keller, now ninety-
one years old, was toll-gate keeper at the Cross Keys on the
Doylestown and Danboro Turnpike road. Oliver Smith has held
a similar position sixteen years on the Doylestown and Dublin
Turnpike and Miss Ada A. Layman, thirteen years at the Turk,
on the Doylestown and Willow Grove Turnpike road.
Deputy State Highway Commissioner Joseph W. Hunter, was
one of the last persons to pay toll on the Buckingham and Doyles-
town Turnpike road, recently freed. Lewis Fonash, of Doyles-
town, passed through the gate only a few minutes before the
road was declared free, and his name goes down to history as
being the last to pay toll on that road, two cents, on May 7, 1917,
at 3 :45 p. m.
And to a plump, ruddy-faced little girl, only six years old,
Mildred, daughter of James and Clara Gentleman, belongs the
honor of standing near the gate, quite elated, with her blue eyes
fairly dancing, as she in a strong, clear and melodious voice,
announced the welcome news to every passer-by — "Free Toll !
Free Toll ! You don't have to pay toll."
BY WILLIAM S. ERDMAN, M.D., BUCKINGHAM, PA.
Early reminiscenses of toll-roads seem almost to have passed
away with the old gate-keepers themselves, but I have been able
to gather a few together, some from personal experience, some
as the experiences of friends, and others were handed down.
My profession has been one largely of the toll-road, as I have
always lived in upper and central Bucks county, a region which
has been, until very recently, much dotted with toll-gates. I
have known rather intimately some of the oldest gate-keepers in
this county, among whom I found many unique characters, who
with few exceptions were of the old school. One of my first
experiences was that of having the pleasure and experience of
riding occasionally with turnpike directors who on arriving at a
gate would simply call out their names — Atkinson, Broadhurst,
Large or Kirk as the case might be and then drive on. At one
TURNPIKE ROADS IN BUCKS COUNTY 29
time at our Buckingham gate there resided one OHver Heath,
during whose service there was being held in the village a series
of temperance meetings. The speakers for these occasions were
being entertained at the homes of some of the aforesaid direc-
tors, and in passing through the gate to and from the meetings
these hospitable gentlemen would call out "all right Oliver." A
temperance speaker referred to this from the platform and asked
his audience to help him solve the question how "all right Oliver"
paid the toll. Another amusing feature of the system was the
fact that gate-keepers were,of course, obliged to take the travel-
ers' word as to their starting point and destination and it was
the rule that they always "came on the pike at the cross roads,"
just above or below. On one occasion in driving along the pike
in upper Bucks county^ the toll-gate was just at a point where
the road made a sharp turn, I failed to drive close enough for the
old lady to reach the money and she resorted to a little tin box
at the end of a long pole, I dropped the dime (the toll was a
nickle) and waited for my change, but she disappeared in the
little door and said "if you want the change come in after it."
I drove on, but a few days later had occasion to pass the same
gate again, I halted politely and said "my toll is paid," she said,
"yes, sir," and I again drove on. Some few years ago, two
George School students failed to pay their toll, while riding their
bicycles through a gate, whereupon the toll-gatherer promptly
mounted his bicycle and chased after them to Newtown, a dis-
tance of some sixteen miles. This same official charged me 12
cents going and 25 cents returning in the same car and with the
same number of people, I paid it promptly, having heard but a
few days before that he resorted to his gun and threatened to
blow up a tire when a woman protested at the exorbitant rate.
Running past toll-gates was a frequent occurence which often
proved disastrous to both car and gate.
One quite exciting incident was related to me about a gate-
keeper, quite aged and with a long flowing beard, who was at
his post of duty one night, when a crowd of young ruffians came
along driving a fast horse, the old man asked for the toll, one of
the fellows seized him by his long white whiskers and dragged
him some distance before letting him go. One popular gate-
1 There have never been any toll roads in the northeastern end of Bucks
county.
30 TURNPIKE ROADS IN BUCKS COUNTY
keeper was an old lady of the "fence hanging" variety, whose
one pleasure in life was gossiping with her neighbors. Not wish-
ing to run back so often to collect the toll, she would call out,
"pay at the next gate."
A year or two ago while driving down the Old York road, I
handed one of the gate-keepers a one-dollar bill saying "take out
for both ways," he handed me back the change which I did not
count, but drove on hurriedly as I had an appointment to meet;
on returning I drove through the gate and in a day or two
learned that he had lodged a complaint against me, for running
past the gate; happily I had a good friend who was director of
that turnpike and an explanation sufficed.
This sort of thing was not always pleasant for the gate-keep-
er's point of view as it caused complaints and fault-finding to be
lodged against him from the traveling public. Sometimes auto-
mobiles were ofi^ered for toll charges, many such slurs and sar-
castic remarks were cast upon the antiquated system. Now, hap-
pily, toll-gates are fast disappearing and soon all things pertaining
to toll-roads will be reminiscenses only.
BY FRANK K. SWAIN, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
Several boys living at Spring Valley and returning from
Doylestown late at night, used to find the Pool's Corner tollgate
closed, and were unwillingly obliged to crawl under it. The
gate-keeper was not bound to open the gate for pedestrians, so
the boys would form in a line a few feet apart, and as each one
passed under he would jiggle the gate so the end resting loosely
on a post against the house, would make a loud rattling noise.
By the time seven or eight of the boys had passed under, the old
keeper, mad as a hornet, would rush out and shout out threats
as long as the boys were able to hear.
Aaron Carver, the old gate-keeper at the Centre ville gate,
prided himself on not letting any one slip through without paying
toll and was generally on hand when a driver stopped or came
near the gate. Olie time two men in a buggy drove through with-
out looking either to the right or left, just as if there was no
gate there, and nearly drove over the writer who supposed they
would stop. The keeper, with long grey hair and flowing beard,
rushed out in a great rage and shook his fists after the team fast
TURNPIKE ROADS IN BUCKS COUNTY 31
disappearing out the New Hope pike. This badly frightened the
writer, then a very small boy, who was coming in the opposite
direction, as he shouted "twice you've done it, I'll have you yet."
He had cold grey eyes and generally closed the left one when
talking to you. and the other one seemed to pierce you through
and through, making one feel as if he had committed some
crime, and that he was able to read your guilt in your eyes. He
closed the gate the moment Gypsies came in sight and would
not open it until the last cent had been collected.
At a toll-gate below Hatboro on the Old York road, on a cool
snappy morning in September, three large touring cars going
north rushed through the gate just as we rode up. A pleasant
old lady, much excited, came running out and crying : "Oh my !
oh my ! its highway robbery, its just plain stealing." I asked her,
"What is, lifting this enormous toll from motorists at six in the
morn?" She replied, "Oh no, they all rush right through and
don't pay a cent, just as those three large cars did, and they go so
fast I cannot turn around in time to see them, oh my! its just
plain stealing, that's what it is."
At a toll-gate on the Point Pleasant pike on a hot April day
one of the carriage horses somewhat fagged out and glad to
stop at the toll-gate, an old lady, wife of the gate-keeper, came
out to collect the toll of Mr. Henry C. Mercer, who thought she
charged him one cent more than the usual rate. There was an
argument for some time. At first she seemed frightened but
later got so mad that Napoleon's whole army could not have
made her change her mind, so the cent was handed over to her.
Just as we started to drive away, Mr. Mercer, thinking of the
horse, asked if we might have a bucket to water him with. Here
she scored again. "No, damned if you may, after that fuss over
a cent, go to a hotel and spend a nickel," she shouted as she
stepped in the house and slammed the door.
Most of the toll-gates were thrown open at ten o'clock at night
because it would not pay the turnpike company to hire an extra
man to collect toll after that hour. H the keeper chose to stay
up after that time and collect toll he could do so at his own
profit ; in that case he would close the gate, hang a lantern on it
and go to sleep somewheres down stairs, and might have to be
called several times before he came out to open the gate. Drivers
32 TURNPIKE ROADS IN BUCKS COUNTY
had a grudge against an "after ten" gate-keeper. On Thursday-
nights the market men and hay haulers passed down the Old
York road so as to be in Philadelphia in the early morning.
There were so many of them thirty years ago that hotels were
kept open all night and at some of them free lunches were placed
on the bars. On those nights the gate-keepers were obliged to
collect toll all night and sometimes six or more teams would be
lined up at a gate waiting to pay their toll and pass through.
Funeral processions were allowed to pass through the gates to
and from the graveyards without paying toll, a sort of discount
after a man had paid his toll in his life. Anyone driving to or
from church was not required to pay toll. Motorists, out on the
"main line" beyond Haverford, used to carry Prayer Books on
Sunday mornings and hold them up as they passed through the
gates unchallenged, although they may have gone no further than
the nearest roadhouse. (Information of Mrs. Harrison Smith.)
Thirty years ago, when little boys in the country wore boots
and were proud of pocket handkerchiefs made from fragments
of old white shirts, they hailed with delight an invitation from
granddaddy to take a ride somewhere. While toll-gates, more
plentiful than country stores, were not a pleasant thing to most
people, to a small child they were more attractive than the board-
walk at Atlantic City in later years, for there, in the bulk-window,
built out so that the gate-keeper could see up and down the
road, were shelves covered with scalloped or crimped newspapers
on which were large glass jars (not always covered with lids)
and these were filled with great ginger cakes, scalloped and stale,
at a cent apiece, or for the same price, the plaited mint-sticks or
birch sticks with white and red corkscrew twisted like a barber's
pole or the soft limp sugary cocoanut stripe of pink and white,
chunks of yellow-jack as hard as flint, butterscotch and the home-
made molasses candy with black walnut kernels, popcorn balls in
pink and white, Hcorice shoestrings, or, best of all, the pale yel-
low and white striped lemon sticks, bought oftenest because they
were hardest and "licked" longer than any other. In those days
children were taught that they should be seen and not heard, but
it was a poor specimen of a boy who could not bring the conver-
sation around to a lemon stick with the aid of the gate-keeper,
who jingled the change, pennies in hand, while he handed out
TURNPIKE ROADS IN BUCKS COUNTY 33
the latest news, especially if granddaddy wanted plug tobacco
with its gaudy tin tag or trade mark with little sharp tack-like
sides or legs that enabled one later to jab it into the soft wood
of the shed door until long shiny rows, or arrows, or wheels
had been formed, thus showing, to the whole world the ex-
travagance of granddaddy 's bad habit. In later years, these men,
to the sorrow of little boys, were called merchants by the govern-
ment and were obliged to pay a mercantile tax. But the profit
had always been small, too small to cover the tax, and so the
large glass jars were taken down and disappeared, and toll-gates
lost their importance and keepers didn't count as far as little
boys were concerned.
Laura Long, when a little girl, lived near the Gardenville toll-
gate. Her mother used to give her a penny for helping with the
work about the house. At the first chance she would run ofif to
the toll-gate to buy a little tin pie dish, or perhaps a frying pan
filled with a sticky pink or red candy mixture that had to be
licked ofif. These dishes and pans, with a little toy cook stove
helped make up a miniature kitchen. Sometimes little tin spoons
were given out with the plates. There were times when the gate-
keeper needed some work done, weeds pulled in the garden, etc.,
and another penny would be earned or better still, another dish of
candy would be given and happy was the day when she could
carry home two dishes of candy even when her mother, cross
over the long delay, had to go after her with a switch.
Incidents in Reference to Toll Roads and Toll Gatherers Were
Related as Follows.
BY MRS. H. S. PRENTISS NICHOLS, GERMANTOWN, PA.
The significance of the word "Turn-pike" was told to me years
ago by my dear father Mr. John Mclllhenny, whose wonderful
mind was a storehouse of information. In the early days the
word pike meant pole or statT. When good roads were very few
and far between companies were authorized to construct them
and repay themselves by collecting "toll" or payment from those
who travelled over them and in order to do so set up at certain
intervals a pike or pole on a hinge which the collector could turn
across the road to bar the passage until the toll was paid, hence a
road with a turn-pike was called from this fact a turnpike. The
34 TURNPIKE ROADS IN BUCKS COUNTY
word has nothing to do with the construction of the road. It
could be a mere dirt road but if it had a turnpike on it the road
itself came to be called a turnpike. The first authorization for
such roads in England were under Edward III. The by or back
roads that avoided the toll gatherers came to be known as "shun-
pikes."
BY FRANK SAURMAN, CHURCHVILLE, PA.
At a toll-gate, probably on the Bridgetown turnpike, about
forty years ago the father of the late John M , frequently
oflfered one hundred dollar bills for toll, as the gate-keeper could
not change them he thus escaped paying his toll. On one oc-
casion, however, the toll-gatherer took the precautions to have
the change ready and when Mr. M , held out the bill,
and was on the point of passing on, shouted out, "Hold up !
I've got the change," and so the toll for that trip was paid.
BY SETH T. WALTON, WILLOW GROVE. PA.
At a toll-gate on the Old York road, about seventy-five years
ago, Mr. L , approached the gate at night with a long team
of horses driven tandem, and found the gate-keeper asleep. He
knocked at the gate house door, and then pounded loudly, but as
there was no answer he hitched his horses to the toll-gate post,
pulled it out, dragged it gate and all, oflf the road and passed on.
The affair was afterwards formally settled.
John C. Agen, who kept the toll-gate between Hatboro and
Willow Grove, on the Willow^ Grove and Warminster turnpike
road in the eighteen seventies, was one of the most pleasant and
genial of toll-gatherers. When he died September 28, 1883, I
paid tribute to his excellence and worth in the following lines,
which his patriarchal and kindly, cherry manner inspired. They
are copied from an issue of the Hatboro Public Spirit, published
a few days later.
IN MEMORIAM.
The gentle keeper of that gate that stands beside the way.
No more will greet us as we pass the tollhouse day by day ;
No more will we behold his face, rimmed with its flowing beard.
That at each passer's summoning so graciously appeared.
TURNPIKE ROADS IN BUCKS COUNTY 35
Himself a traveler upon life's hard and stony road,
He has the last gate journeyed through and borne his weary load ;
And to the Keeper of the gate that bars the way of life,
He has delivered up the toll collected in the strife.
We know that we shall miss thee, friend, whenever passing
through
The gate that thou dids't keep so well, so faithfully and true.
And long we'll keep in memory thy pleasant cheery face ;
And kindly voice that greeted us with such courtesy and grace.
And gentle keeper of the gate, in bidding thee farewell,
We feel that thou art faring well where happy spirits dwell.
And when the summons comes to us, as 'twill come soon or late,
May we, like thee, life enter, through the straight and narrow gate.
BY HENRY C. MERCER, SC.D., DOYLESTOWN, PA.
The toll-gates above referred to, appear to have been con-
struced in three ways :
1. The single armed gate. From a small post fixed at the
outer edge of the road, opposite the toll-house, extended a pole
or strip of wood (the guard rail) to another larger post standing
nearly in the middle of the road, equipped with two spiked
wrought iron hinge pivots. Upon the latter post swung a bracket
made of three wooden pieces, first a vertical arm with the hinges,
second a short diagonal brace mortised in position, third a
horizontal pole long enough to reach the wall of the gate-house
and meet there a smaller post. When open, this gate-bar ex-
tended at right angles to the guard-rail and parallel to the road.
(See illustration, page 18.)
2. The double armed gate. The former apparatus doubled or
lacking the guard rail, so that two brackets instead of one swung
on the central post to open or close the road. In this case only
the bracket nearest the toll-house seems to have been used, the
other bracket, generally in bad repair, remained either perma-
nently open or closed.
3. The sweep gate. A long light bar made of two pointed
boards (in the WVightstown gate fifteen feet seven inches long)
bolted together on blocks, hinged or pivoted and balanced on a
strong post close to the toll-house so as to rise vertically and
36 TURNPIKE ROADS IN BUCKS COUNTY
open the road, or fall and close it, upon another post, with or with-
out a guard-rail as above described on the opposite side of the
road.
On the recent freeing of the Buckingham and Newtown, and
Buckingham and New Hope turnpike roads ; I obtained from the
two companies, as presents, for our museum, four of these gates,
with their posts, brackets, guard-rails, etc., complete, namely :
A, the Wrightstown gate of class 3. B, the Buckingham Moun-
tain gate of class 2, unfortunately lacking the central post. C,
the Buckingham gate of class 1, where the bracket was equipped
with a vertical cedar pole at its outer end which enabled the gate-
keeper to close the gate by pulling a string stretched from the
pole's end, above wagon top level, across the road, and, D, the
Pools Corner gate of class 2. in very bad condition where the
posts generally rotted out at the base had been faced with boards.
Together with these gates, dug up and hauled to the museum
on April 4th, and May 8th, 1917, I obtained several signboards
painted with the words "Stop and Pay Toll, Save Cost," cash
boxes and a sliding cash drawer, an iron handle to screw against
the house at the sweep-gate to be grasped by the gate-keeper in
lifting the short down balanced end of the bar to close the gate
and a hook and staple to catch the bar when up and open on a
sweep-gate, etc., all of which objects together with the Wrights-
town and Mountain gates are now on exhibition in the museum
and explained under their numbers in our catalogue.
It appears that turnpike roads, and therefore toll-gates though
a celebrated feature in the country life of old England, in the
eighteenth century, did not exist in Bucks county in Colonial
times. The Buckingham and Newtown road as Mr. Kirk tells
us was built in the late 1840's and probably all the toll-gates re-
ferred to in the above notes were built within the memory of
persons now living. The toll-gates in our museum are therefore
not more than 70 years old. One of the brackets of the Moun-
tain gate and several of the timbers of the Buckingham gate
(fifteen feet, nine inches long) made of old hewn wood, may be
pieces of the original construction. Otherwise many of the de-
molished parts of all four gates show repairs and insertions with
modem sawed lumber. The Universal Magazine for October
1751 at page 172 says:
THE DRAISANA OR PEDESTRIAN HOBBY HORSE Z7
"In the Act for preservation of turnpike roads, etc., it is enacted that
after the first of July 1752 every wagon or other carriage drawn with
six horses, except coaches, berlins, chariots, chaises, calashes, hearses
and all waggons wains, carts and other carriages employed only about
husbandry or in carrying only of straw, hay, corn unthrashed, chalk
or any stone, or block of marble or piece of timber, and all caravans or
covered carriages of noblemen, etc., for their private use, or such
timber, ammunition or artilery as shall be necessary for his Majesty's
service, shall pay 20 s. at every turnpike through which it passes above
all other tolls or duties to be applied to the repair of the highway:
and 5 1. in case any horse be taken of¥ from the carriage to avoid the
said duty to be levied by distress and sale of the offender's goods, and
that after the 31st of September 1751 any person may seize or distrain
for his own sole use any one horse (except the thill or shaft horse) of
any carriage driving out of the turnpike road to avoid the tolls."
The "Draisiana" or Pedestrian Hobby Horse of 1819.
BY HORACE WELLS SELLERS, PHIL.\DELPHIA.
(Churchville Meeting, May 23, 1917.)
AMONG the objects in the museum of the Bucks County
Historical Society, the old hand power fire engine^ and
the device known in its day as a "walking machine," are
mentioned in certain contemporary writings which happen to
contain also incidents of historical interest relating to Bucks
county. These writings comprise the journals, correspondence
and biographical notes of Charles Wilson Peak (1741-1827),
portrait painter, who was in active service as an officer during our
Revolutionary War and in his later years was the founder of the
first museum of natural history in America.
The primitive bicycle in the collection is an object that might
be passed by without fully realizing its historic significance, and
I shall therefore refer more particularly to it, especially as very
little has been written concerning its origin and early use.
It is of the type first introduced into America about the year
1819. It was then a popular amusement abroad and much dis-
cussed in the newspapers and magazines of the day.
It was popularly known as the "Pedestrian Hobby-Horse" or
1 The Hand Power Fire Engine is fully described by John A. Anderson,
in his paper, "Interesting New Hope Relics ;" see Vol. IV, p. 75.
38 THE "draisana" or pedestrian hobby horse
"fast walking machine," and by the term "Velocipede" or
"Draisiana" in England and America, while in Germany it was
called "Drais Laufmashin," and in France the "Draisena."
In referring to it Peale states that it was the invention of a
German named Drais, and his authority for this was afterwards
reprinted in the Analetic Magadne of Philadelphia in the year
1819, in which the inventor is described as "Baron Charles De
Drais, master of the woods and forests of H. R. H. the Grand
Duke of Baden."
'M '/KA
j^*-''^''^ ' ^ '^^mmB^w!
!i»|^9jhHB^k^^^^^^BB^^m|^^^^h
While the machine, like the modern bicycle, consisted of two
wheels of equal diameter, with the forward wheel pivoted and
controlled by a steering device, the essential point of difference
was (as may be seen in the machine in your museum) that in-
stead of being provided with pedals it was propelled by the
rider's feet on the ground.
A reference to this in the Gentleman's Magazine of March
1819 is interesting, showing also the attention at the time:
"The new machine entitled a Velocipede, consisting of two wheels
one before the other, connected by a perch, on which the pedestrian
rests the weight of his body, while with his feet he urges the machine
forward, on the principle of skating, is already in very general use.
'The road from Ipswich to Whitton,' says the Bury paper, 'is traveled
every evening by several pedestrian hobby-horses; no less than six are
seen at a time, and the distance which is three miles, performed in
fifteen minutes.
" 'A military gentleman has made a bet to go to London by the side
of the coach.'
"The crowded state of the Metropolis does not admit of this novel
mode of exercise, and it has been put down by the Magistrate of
THE "dRAISANa'' OR PEDESTRIAN HOBBY HORSE 39
Police: but it contributes to the amusement of the passengers in the
streets in the shape of caricatures in the print shops."
Among these English prints is one showing the interior of
"Johnson's Pedestrian Hobby Horse School at 1)77 Strand," as
the title reads, in which riders wearing tall beaver hats and the
fashionable costumes of the day are seen traveling around a ring
which appears to have an undulating surface to permit "coast-
ing," as we now call it, to which the machine was especially
adapted.
Another print shows "Johnston, First rider of the Pedestrian
Hobby-Horse," and among the caricatures is a colored print with
the title, "More Economy, or a penny Saved a Penny Got," rep-
resenting a Bishop riding a hobby-horse with John Bull looking
on and Windsor Castle in the distance. Another is called, "Go-
ing to the Hobbyfair" and shows an old gentleman who is pro-
pelling the machine and mopping his brow, his wig and hat placed
in front of him while behind are seated a lady and children.
A cut of the "Velocipede of 1827," with two wheels propelled
by the rider's feet, is shown in Pcrky's Reniinisccnscs, Vol. I,
p. 30, with the statement that "One of the secretaries of legation
created a sensation by appearing on Pennsylvania avenue, Wash-
ington, D. C., mounted on a velocipede imported from London."
Some of these prints illustrate the variations of the machine as
designed to meet the more delicate sensibilities of women who
would hardly venture to mount astride the wheels, it not being
the fashion in that age to indulge in masculine pursuits, and for
their use we see represented in one of the prints "The Ladies'
Hobby," with the following description under that title :
"The principle of this machine consists in two boards acting on
cranks, on the axle of the forewheel, in a similar manner to those
used for the purpose of turnery, and accelerated by the use of the
handles, as represented in the plate; the direction is managed by the
centre handle, which may be fixed so as to perform any given circle."
This was a tricycle and another print shows one called "A
Pilentum, or Lady's Accelerator invented by Hancock & Co.,
St. James Street."
These tricycles were operated by pedals and in the Gentleman's
Magazine of June, 1819. we read :
"A model of a Velocipede intended for the use of ladies, is now ex-
40 THE "dRAISANa" OR PEDESTRIAN HOBBY HORSE
hibited at Ackerman's, in London. It resembles Johnstone's machine,
and has two wheels behind, which are wrought by two levers, like
weaver's treadles, on which the person impelling the machine presses
alternately with a walking motion. These move the axle by means of
leather straps round the cramps; and the wheels being fixed revolve
with it. The lady sits on a seat before, and directs the Velocipede as
in the original invention."
The possibilities of this new method of conveyance and rapid
transit appealed to the popular fancy and stimulated invention
with the result that numerous variations of the machine were de-
vised. One called the "Pedestrian Chariot" is described as hav-
ing "infinitely greater power and as entirely unlike the velocipede.
Its chief attractions are its simplicity and perfect safety, being
eligible for the conveyance of ladies, and even children. The
wheels are upwards of six feet in diameter, run parallel with
each other ; and as the seat is below the center of gravity the rider
can neither be thrown, nor easily lose his equilibrium."
To return to the Draisiana or "Fast walking machine" in its
original and simplest form as it appears in your collection, the
published accounts in discussing it seriously assert that :
"The instrument appears to have satisfied a desideratum in me-
chanics; all former attempts have failed, upon the known principle that
power is attainable only at the expense of velocity. But the impelling
principle is totally different from all others; it is not derived from the
body of the machine, but from a resistance operating externally, and
in a manner the most conformable to nature — the resistance of the
feet upon the ground. The body is carried and supported, as it were,
by two skates, while the impulse is given by the alternate motion of
both legs."
At the time Charles Wilson Peale became interested in this
subject he was best known perhaps on account of the museum he
had established, and as a member and for many years one of the
Curators of the American Philosophical Society, he kept in touch
with the progress of the sciences and the industrial arts. His
celebrity as a portrait painter before and during the Revolution
was not forgotten although he laid aside his brush as a profes-
sion some years before Stuart, Trumbull and the younger artists,
who were about fifteen years his junior, had entered the field in
this country and his own sons, Raphael and Rembrandt had in a
large measure taken his place.
After placing the museum under the direction of the board of
THE DRAISANA ' OR PEDESTRIAN HOBBY HORSE 41
trustees and the management of one of his sons, Peale retired to
his country seat, "Belfield," near Germantown, and it was not
until then that he was tempted to resume his painting through his
interest in the newer technique of the younger school of painters.
This return to his art attracted some little notice and in Feb-
ruary of 1819 a Baltimore newspaper commenting upon it, re-
fers to his having
"Been distinguished for his zeal in painting an invaluable series of
portraits of our Revolutionary heroes, which adorn his museum in
Philadelphia. That museum, however, for a long time withdrew him
from painting, until he retired, nine years ago to the labors of a farm.
It is probable the vigor of his present health may be ascribed to this
circumstance. Animated by his youthful ardor, he has resumed the
pencil, and has just returned from Washington with a number of por-
traits of public characters."
The portraits mentioned were those of President Monroe, mem-
bers of the cabinet, and others prominent in official life at that
time. After leaving the capitol he stopped at Baltimore and
while there his attention was called to what he describes as "a
fast walking machine made by Mr. Stewart, a musical instrument
maker."
A few months later, in May 1918, he again refers to the sub-
ject in a letter to his son Rembrandt Peale:
"I wish you would send me your verses on it, as appropriate to the
present general conversation, it is all the fashion. Seeing a Print in
Aikens repository, I set about making one, the frame all iron, as is
the custom of Britain to make everything. And I made the hind
wheel two feet seven and one-half inches diameter, the circumference
is one-half pole; a machine which Mr. Lukins some time past gave me
for my chaize, to measure roads — two revolutions of my Velocipede
wheel being equal to one of the chaize — I have only to count one-half
the distance given by the hands of the machine. Thus my Velocipede
will not only be amusing, but also useful.
"The curiosity has and still is great to see this fast walking ma-
chine, and having deposited it in the museum, it has given Rubins a
very considerable profit, as a great deal of company has visited the
museum on purpose to see it, being the first made in Pennsylvania.. As
soon as it was heard of, several of them appeared immediately con-
structed in a different manner of wood, some of them very light; some
of a temporary nature. Mine was made of the irons which had be-
longed to my thrashing machine, put together by an indifferent black-
smith; it weighed fifty-five pounds. I might take off five pounds of
that weight, and it then will be exactly of the weight of those made
42 THE "draisana"^ or pedestrian hobby horse
in England. It is a mistake to expect use from them if they are made
of very little weight, and a few pounds additional is of little conse-
quence as being borne on the wheels. Mr. Stewart is exhibiting his at
the Federal Hall, whether he makes it profitable or not I have not
heard."
The exhibition of this first machine is referred to in the
American Daily Advertiser of May 13, 1819, in a news item
under the heading of "Velocipede," reading:
"This whimsical pedestrian accelerator, having excited much curios-
ity, Mr. Peale has made one, which is now in the museum."
As Peale states, others were quick to introduce the device, and
in another column of the same newspaper we read :
"The Velocipede will be exhibited at the Vauxhall Gardens by Mr.
Chambers, on Thursday morning the 13th of May, to be continued
daily (Sunday excepted) from 9 to 11 o'clock — and in the evening from
6 to 7 o'clock, by permission of the proprietor, and will be propelled
round the walks moved by the feet of the gentleman that rides upon it."
Peale was in his 69th year at this time but to undertake to
use the velocipede at his age was quite in accord with his fa-
vorite theory that by continued activity in wholesome and use-
ful pursuits, joined with prudence and temperance in all things,
the average man might escape the ennui and ills of old age.
During the summer of 1819 he was closely confined to his
painting room at "Belfield," being engaged upon a large canvas
ful of detail and many figures, and after describing this in a
letter he adds :
"I have been constantly at my easel from early in the morning until
night, painting until my back would ache, then I would ride the
Draisiana round a few squares in the Garden, return again to my brush,
thus alternately paint and take exercise, otherwise I never could have
painted such a picture."
In keeping with his usual habit of thought he made the ma-
chine serve a useful purpose by applying to it a cyclometer made
for his chaize by Josiah Lukins the clockmaker. The instrument
he states was graduated to record "the distances passed over in
perches as well as in miles to the number of one hundred" and in
a letter to one of his sons in September 1819 he states :
"Yesterday I began a survey of the farm, having borrowed a survey-
ing compass to give the courses. I measured the distance with m}-
Machine which is a more expeditious mode than by a Chain, and I be-
lieve tolerably accurate."
THE "dRAISANa'' OR PEDESTRIAN HOBBY HORSE 43
From another letter we learn that his son Franklin Peale was
making a walking machine of wood :
"Which will not weigh much more than half of mine. This is all
important as we cannot go without labour up hill * * * this dis-
advantage is amply made up by the velocity on descending ground,
your brothers and other young men go down my road from the house
to the 'Echo' without touching the ground with the speed of a running
horse, nay they often put their feet over the (arm) rest * * * *
Some gentlemen who come to the farm, make a very awkward display
of their legs and tumble down. Franklin went to Robert Morris' in
three-quarters of an hour, when the machine was not so complete as
it is at present, and I believe with a well made machine the speed
may be calculated on tolerably good roads, at about six or seven miles
an hour without incurring much fatigue."
The action of the poHce magistrates of London in prohibiting
the use of the machine as already referred to, had its echo in
Philadelphia where according to Peale it met with opposition.
After the machine had been ridden a few mornings and even-
ings around Washington Square, which distance he notes was
traveled by one of his sons, Franklin Peale, in two and one-half
minutes, an ill-natured person resurrected an old law designated
to protect sidewalks from damage under which a fine of $3.00
was imposed for each ofifense for driving a two-wheeled carriage
on the pavement. A young man who had ridden one of the
walking machines was brought before the mayor and while his
offense was hardly within the intention of the law he paid the
fine to avoid further trouble, but Peale adds, this ended the use
of the walking machine within the city limits.
In referring at the outset to Peak's writings in general, allusion
was made to incidents of local interest relating to Bucks county.
Reserving these for another occasion I will simply say in con-
clusion that in 1777, when Philadelphia was threatened by the
British, Peale removed his family for safety first to the house of
Mr. Britton, near Abington, and when the British finally occupied
the city, after the Battle of Germantown he found it advisable to
seek a more remote place of refuge and with the assistance of
Dr. Tombs he moved to a house owned by Mr. Vanartsdalen not
far from Newtown and probably at Richboro.- It was at that
place, and while he was with the army at Valley Forge that his
son Rembrandt Peale was born on February 22, 1778. The
latter is therefore claimed as a native of Bucks county.
2 Possibly the site of the Indian town of Playwicky, on the Feasterville
turnpike.
Life and Work of the Rev. Peter Henry Dorsius.
BY THE REV. WILLIAM J. HINKE, PH.D., D.D., AUBURN, N. Y.
(Doylestown Meeting, January 19, 1918.)
IN a paper presented to this society January 16, 1916, on the
Rev. Paulus Van Vlecq, the writer showed that on May 20,
1710, Pauhis Van Vlecq organized a Dutch Reformed con-
gregation at Neshaminy, Bucks county. That it was a Dutch Re-
formed congregation cannot at all be doubtful. Both pastor and
people had been reared in the Dutch church.. They conducted
their services in the Dutch language and kept also their records
in Dutch. In the fall of that year, on September 21, 1710, this
Dutch Reformed pastor asked the Ptesbytery of Philadelphia to
admit him to membership. This request was granted "after
serious debating thereon."
At the same meeting of Presbytery Mr. Leonard Van Degrift
was admitted to sit with the Presbytery as representing the
Neshaminy Church. This proves that both pastor and people
had become, at least for the time being, members of the Presby-
terian Church.
The Neshaminy congregation continued in existence until 1713,
when Mr. Van Vlecq left the church and the state. In 1714,
when the Abington Presbyterian Church was organized, at least
two members of Neshaminy joined that organization, namely
Christoffel Van Sandt and Dirck Croesen. Their names are
found attached to a paper,^ by which seventy people of the town-
ship of Abington "engaged themselves to the Lord and to one
another to unite in a Church-State," with Malachi Jones as
their pastor.
A larger number of Dutch people joined in 1719 in the or-
ganization of the Bensalem Presbyterian Church, also under the
leadership of the Rev. Mr. Jones. They were not only Messrs.
Van Sandt and Croesen, but seventeen other Dutch people. It
is a noteworthy fact that their names are found in the old
Neshaminy record, entered there by the elder Van Sandt. He
1 It is true that Captain N. Baggs. in his History of the Abington Presby-
terian Church gives the date of this document as 1711, but that is most lil^ely
a misprint, as in 1711 Van Sandt and Croesen were still members of the
Neshaminy Church. Moreover, Mr. Jones was not received by Presbytery
till 1714.
LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HENRY DORSIUS 45
States definitely that they "were received on profession of faith
by the Rev. Malachi Jones."- This impHes clearly a reorganiza-
tion as a new Presbyterian Church, although the old Dutch record
was used and the Dutch language.
This state of afifairs continued until the end of the pastorate of
Mr. Jones, who died March 26, 1729. Then the Dutch people
thought the time had come for them to reorganize once more
and form again an independent Dutch congregation. They evi-
dently felt crowded out by the large number of Irish people that
had come in. Hence in 1730 they invited the Rev. Cornelius
Santvoord of Staten Island to visit them.
EFFORTS TO SECURE DORSIUS FOR PENNSYLVANIA, I73O-I737.
Van Santvoord complied with the request of the Dutch people
in Bucks county on May 3d, 1730, when he not only preached for
them and baptized nine of their children, but also installed
Christofifel Van Sandt and Gerrit (Gerhard) Croesen as elders,
Benjamin Corsen and Abraham Van der Grift as deacons of the
congregation. This event marked a new chapter in the history
of the congregation. Henceforth it was no longer under Pres-
byterian supervision, but it proclaimed itself and continued to be
an independent Dutch Reformed congregation. But its connec-
tion with the organization of Van Vlecq is established by the
fact that virtually the same people (except a few newcomers)
constituted the membership of both organizations. In other
words, the church of Van Vlecq, organized in 1710 and disbanded
in 1714, was reorganized in 1730.
Another important event took place on May 3, 1730. The con-
gregation addressed a letter (at the suggestion of Van Sant-
voord) to Dominies David Knibble and John Wilhelmius, Dutch
Reformed pastors at Leyden and Rotterdam in Holland. As this
document has not been published before, we insert in it full :^
"To the Reverend, Pious and Very Learned Sirs, Messrs. David
2 See Neshaminy Record in Journal of Presbyterian Historical Society,
Vol. I, p. 119.
3 This letter, as well as others that follow, is preserved in the Archives
of the General Synod of the Reformed Church of America at New Bruns-
wick, N. J., where the congregation dejjosited all its early records and papers.
They are in the Gardner A. Sage Library of the Theological Seminary at
New Brunswick.
46 LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HENRY DORSIUS
Knibbe and John Wilhelmius, faithful and zealous Ministers of the
Gospel at Leyden and Rotterdam.
"We, the consistory of the Christian Reformed Dutch congregation
in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, take the liberty of requesting the
assistance of your Reverences. Under the providence of God we have
here our homes, but thus far have had no instruction in the doctrines
of truth which tend to godliness, in our mother-tongue, a language
best understood by us. Hitherto our number was too small and too
weak to raise a sufificient salary for a regular minister. Meanwhile
we miss for ourselves and our families that instruction which we can
best understand and most urgently need, and which we at the same
time most eagerly desire.
"We, therefore, request your Reverences submissively, for the honor
of God and the establishment of this church, to select for us a suitable
man, of about thirty years of age, unmarried, having a distinct pro-
nunciation, well grounded in the doctrines of truth, able to instruct
and admonish us, to silence all gainsaj'ers, and of an edifying walk
and conversation. Having found such a man, we give you full power
and authority to call him in our name and that of the congregation,
as our regular minister, to have the proper ecclesiastical qualification
conferred upon him, and we promise him a yearly salary of sixty
pounds, of which his Reverence is to receive payment for the first
half year upon delivering his first sermon among us, and in case the
congregation increases, his salary shall increase correspondingly. He
is also to receive a free dwelling house, kindling wood and the passage
money for himself and his goods to this place and on the day of the
Lord to have a free conveyance.
"But we demand of him that he preach twice every Sunday and also
on other days, according to the custom of our church, at two places,
further to catechise the youth and others who desire instruction and
to do everything which his calling demands.
"We promise to recognize the legality of that which your Reverences
shall do, to receive with love the person sent to us, and that the mem-
bers of the consistory will be chosen from time to time, as is cus-
tomary at present.
"Done thus in our church gathering on May 3, 1730, by us.
"Your submissive servants, the elders and deacons of the above-
named congregation in Bucks county."
When Do. Van Santvoord reached home he sent a letter to
his uncle, Benjamin Corsen, dated May 9, 1730, in which he
gave his friends further advice regarding "the means necessary
to establish a congregation in Bucks county." He advised them
first, to consider well how many congregations they desired to
establish, what should be their respective boundaries and what
families should belong to each. Secondly, to call a meeting of
the male members of the congregation (or congregations), in
LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HEXRV DORSIUS 47
order to elect elders and deacons in conformity with the church
order of the Synod of Dort. Thirdly, to proceed to the calling
of a minister by settling above all the following items: (1)
The salary of the minister, which ought to be not less than eighty
pounds Pennsylvania currency ; ( 2 ) The parsonage and glebe
which ought to contain enough pasture for one horse and two or
three cows and at least a small garden and a fair orchard. These
should be put in order while the call was on its way to Holland.
Special care should be taken that the parsonage be located at a
place convenient for the minister and the congregation. (3) The
salary of the minister, although raised by free-will offerings,
should be put on a secure basis by establishing a fund from
whose income it could be paid.
These and some other suggestions which the good Dominie
made to his friends in Bucks county, were evidently far beyond
their ability to carry out, for the letter sent to Holland as well
as later evidence show that they fell far short of the ideal set
for them.
The letter to Holland was entrusted to two German Reformed
travelers, who in May, 1730, were setting out on a journey to
Holland. They were the Rev. George Michael Weiss and Jacob
Reiff, one of the members of the Skippack Reformed congrega-
tion. Reiff was entrusted with the traveling expenses of the new
minister to be sent from Holland to Bucks county. Messrs.
Weiss and Reiff were traveling to Holland at that time, in order
to collect there some money, which the Dutch churches in Hol-
land had contributed for the German Reformed congregations in
Pennsylvania, in answer to an appeal, which Weiss had sent to
Holland in 1727.
The answer to the Bucks county letter from Holland was ap-
parently long delayed. At least no letters of the years 1732 and
1733 are found in the archives of the congregation. Meanwhile
dissensions arose, so that Mr. Gerritt Croesen again wrote to
their faithful friend on Staten Island, describing to him their
sad condition, and asking for help and relief. On May 9, 1733,
the Rev. Mr. Van Santvoort sent a letter to his uncle, Benjamin
Corsen, in which he expressed deep regret at hearing of their
division and that John Slecht had given up his office as reader
among them. He counselled peace and unity, offered to come
48 LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HENRY DORSIUS
himself once a year to them to administer the sacraments, and,
if more preaching be found necessary, he advised them to apply
to Do. Theodore J. Frelinghuisen, the Dutch Reformed minister
at Raritan and New Brunswick in New Jersey.
After a delay of several years, Rev. John Wilhelmius wrote
to the congregation, on May 29, 1734. In this letter he informed
them that the first candidate, whom he had secured had disap-
pointed him. But that he had found another young man of about
24 years of age, who was anxious to come. As he was poor
Wilhelmius asked permission to use part of the money sent to
him to educate this young man, who had not quite finished his
education. He wrote as follows :*
"Worthy and Much Beloved Brethren in Jesus Christ!
"In accordance with your desire I offered your call formally to an
honest and learned candidate, named Masius, whose father is pastor
of the Dutch Reformed congregation at Altona near Hamburg. He
accepted it at first, but when the time of his departure arrived, his
father and he himself also wrote, declining the call, to my great sorrow.
Since that time I used every endeavor to find another person for that
purpose, but was unable to find anyone. Finally, a few weeks ago, I
met a certain capable and pious young man, of about 24 years of age,
who still needs one year to finish his studies. He showed great eager-
ness and desire to preach the Word of God among you, but he has no
means of his own. I believe this man would become, under the bless-
ing of God, a useful and suitable minister among you, and I recom-
mend him to you most heartily.
"But there is this question, whether you are willing to grant him an-
other year to finish his studies and whether I may be permitted to ad-
vance him enough money from the sum which you have placed in my
hands for this purpose and as much as may be necessary for his ex-
amination and his ordination in this country.
"From the letters which I received. I learned that his salary is to be
sixty pounds, by which I understood pounds sterling, but now I
learn from Captain Stedman that a [Pennsylvania] pound amounts to
only six or seven Dutch guilders. Besides that, he is to receive a free
parsonage, wood and a meadow for two cows and a horse. Moreover,
there was in addition another letter from a neighboring place, which
promised twenty pounds to the minister, if he would preach for them
and administer the Lord's Supper four times a year.
"I now report that the money, which Ryff handed to me, is still in
my keeping, in exactly the same amount, and that I am ready to re-
turn it, upon proper receipt, as you may be pleased to order. But, if
you consent to have it used for the benefit of the above-named person,
I am ready to employ it for that purpose. I am awaiting your orders
4 Original at New Brunswick, N. J.
LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HENRY DORSIUS 49
and, as quickly as it can be done, he will fully qualify himself for the
service in your church and come to you.
"The reason that I have not answered before this was the lack of
opportunity and because Ryff promised to call on me in order to re-
ceive my answer to your letter, but he embarked hastily without com-
ing to see me.
"Commending you to God and the Word of His grace, I am with
every readiness to serve you,
Worthy Brethren in Christ,
Your affectionate Brother,
JOHN WILHELMIUS.
Rotterdam. May 29, 1734.
"To Mr. Louis Timothee, in order to hand it over to the elder and
deacon, Mr. Gerrit Kroesen and Mr. Benjamin Corsen in Pennsylvania.
With Captain Stedman."
On October 30, 1734, the consistory of the Neshaminy congre-
gation answered the letter of Wilhehnius. They expressed their
pleasure at hearing that a young man had been found by Wil-
helmius, who was willing to accept their call. They declared
their willingness to wait for him and gave their consent that the
money they had sent over be used for his support while he was
studying. They announced their intention of buying a planta-
tion of fifty acres as a glebe for their pastor and expressed the
hope that God would bless his studies. Finally they thanked
Wilhelmius for the exertions he had made in their behalf. The
letter was signed by the following persons : Christoffel Van
Sandt, Gerret Kroesen, Benjamin Corsen, Abraham Van der
Grift, Abraham Bennet, Henry Croesen, John Dorrelant, Ger-
ret Wynkoop, Abraham Bennet, Jr., John Slegt, Nicholas Wyn-
koop, Abraham Stevens, Dirk Hogelant, Jost van Pelt, John
Kroesen, Gideon de Camp, Franz Kroesen, Jacob Van Sandt,
and Hendrick Brees.
Instead of sending the promised minister, the Rev. John
Wilhelmius wrote another letter, on March 1, 1735, to the "Rev-
erend Consistory of the Church of Jesus Christ in Bucks
County." He wrote in part as follows :
"It was very agreeable to me to learn from your letter of October 30,
1734, that you approve my selection of the young man, who is now
about 26 years of age and still unmarried. He is already well advanced
with his studies. He knows the learned languages, Latin, Greek and
Hebrew so well, that he is giving instruction in them to others. He is
also well advanced in divinity, but must still study somewhat in the
50 LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HENRY DORSIUS
university. He is a pious young man, who is zealous and burning with
desire to preach the name of Jesus in the New World. I asked him to
sign a paper, by which he obligated himself, as soon as his studies are
completed, to go to you and to accept your call, or, if through unex-
pected events he should be prevented from doing this, that he will re-
pay the money advanced to him with double interest. I hope that this
undertaking will have a blessed outcome."
This letter was brought to America by the Rev. Maurice
Goetschy, who with a Swiss colony was at that time in Holland,
ready to depart for Pennsylvania. He did arrive in Philadelphia
on May 29, 1735, but he was sick and died on the day following
his landing. The letter, however, which he carried, reached its
destination safely.
Another set of letters was exchanged between Wilhelmius and
the Bucks county people in 1736, Wilhelmius writing on July 4,
1736, and the Neshaminy Consistory answering him on Decem-
ber 10, 1736. In this last letter they informed Wilhelmius that
they were looking forward to the coming of their pastor, that
they were ready to pay him the salary they had agreed upon, ex-
cept the twenty pounds by a neighboring place ; but they expressed
the hope that on his arrival they would fall in line, especially
after they had heard the new pastor preach. They reported that
their own pledges were raised to sixty pounds through new ar-
rivals, and that they were willing to pay his passage money. They
were unable to do more than this, because the thirty or forty
acres of land they intended to buy, together with the parsonage
which had to be erected, would cost more than two hundred
pounds.
Finally, on May 22, 1737, Wilhelmius was able to write to the
Consistory at Neshaminy that their young pastor had been or-
dained at Groningen and would sail with Captain Stedman for
Philadelphia. He expressed the hope that he would prove a use-
ful minister in proclaiming the truth, in guarding against error
and in building up the Church of Christ in their midst. Thus,
after waiting like Jacob for seven years, their hopes and prayers
were at last realized.
LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HENRY DORSIUS 51
THE LIFE OF DORSIUS IN EUROPE, I7II-I737.
The young man who had thus been secured for service in
Pennsylvania was the Rev. Peter Henry Dorsius. From his
entry in the matriculation book of the university of Leyden it
appears that he was born at Meurs (or Moers, as it is spelled
today) a small town of about five thousand inhabitants near the
Lower Rhine, in the district of Duesseldorf.
A letter, which the writer addressed in 1914, to the pastor of
the Reformed Church at Moers, brought to light the following
information regarding the family of Dorsius. Peter Henry
Dorsius was a son of John Henry Dorsius, or Dorschius, as he
is called in the record. John Henry "Dorschius," then a widow-
er, married Petronella Gravers of Altkirch on September 15.
1708. The following children were born to this couple, as noted
in the baptismal record: (1) Alathea, baptized November 15.
1709; (2) Peter Henry, baptized January 2, 1711 ; (3) Abraham,
baptized August 5. 1712; (4) Isaac, baptized December 22. 1713;
died in infancy; (5) Isaac, baptized March 8, 1715. While his
younger brother Isaac entered the gymnasium (college) at
Moers on May 5. 1727. the name of Peter Henry Dorsius cannot
be found there, which means that he received his classical train-
ing somewhere else.
On April 5. 1734. Dorsius matriculated at the university of
Groningen. The deputies of the Synods of North and South Hol-
land first heard of him through the Rev. John Wilhelmius, on
October 31, 1735, when they had an interview with the latter at
Rotterdam about the Pennsylvania churches. At that time Wil-
helmius reported to them that, at the request of some merchants
in New Netherland, he had engaged "a pious young man" to
prepare himself at the university of Groningen for the service of
the Dutch Reformed congregation near Philadelphia. Professors
Driessen and Van Velsen at the university gave laudable testi-
monials regarding him and reported that he would probably be
ready in the following spring to go to Pennsylvania.
But instead of going to Pennsylvania in the year 1736, he
went to the university of Leyden to finish his studies there. On
September 17, 1736, he matriculated at Leyden as : "P'etrus Hen-
52 LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HENRY DORSIUS
ricus Dorsius, Meursahus, 25,T." This entry means that he studied
at Leyden as a candidate of theology, was twenty-five years of
age when he entered the university and reported his home as
being Meurs, along the lower Rhine. It is interesting to note that
a few months later, on December 27, 1736, Michael Schlatter of
St. Gall matriculated at Leyden, also as a theological student, al-
though Schlatter makes no reference to Dorsius as having known
him, when he met him in Pennsylvania in 1746.
At the meeting of the deputies on March 11-14, 1737, Wil-
helmius reported that Dorsius was about to be examined and
would soon leave for Pennsylvania. He suggested that he was
the proper person through whom the deputies could secure re-
liable information regarding Reformed churches in Pennsylvania.
On June 11, 1737, Dorsius himself appeared before the depu-
ties at The Hague. He announced that he was ready to leave
for Pennsylvania on June 27th (old style) with Captain Sted-
man. He stated that he had accepted a call of the Reformed con-
gregation in Bucks county, at a salary of £60, to which £20
more would probably be added by another congregation, as soon
as it could be organized. Dorsius also asked the deputies whether
he could be of service to them. They then requested him first,
to investigate the conditions of the Reformed churches there and
secondly, to report to them regarding them.
The last events before his departure, his trip across the ocean
and his first experiences in Pennsylvania were described by
Dorsius in a letter, which he wrote to the Synodical Deputies in
June 1749.^ He then wrote in part as follows :
"It is about twelve years ago, after I had been received, on April 30,
1737, by the Classis of Schieland at Rotterdam, as a candidate of the-
ology and on May 29th of the same year had been ordained by the very
learned faculty of Groningen, as a minister of the Gospel, that on
July 11 [1737, new style], I undertook the great and dangerous journey
from Rotterdam to Pennsylvania, when we did not arrive safely at
Philadelphia till October Sth, with the loss, however, of many per-
sons, who had died at sea and had been buried in the great ocean.
There I inquired immediately after my location, when I learned right
at the beginning that I, as well as others, had been woefully deceived
in my expectations, being compelled to preach for one year in the
barn of one farmer after another, because there was no house of God.
At the same time I had to take my lodging with one family after an-
5 The original is in the archives of the General Synod of the Dutch Re-
formed Church, at The Hague, Holland.
LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HENRY DORSIUS 53
Other in the backwoods [bosch], as they are accustomed to call them
in that land. This made me think of returning speedily [to Holland],
but I was kept back by my conscience and the example of the early
Christians. Through the encouraging and cheering letters of the very
learned Rev. Ernest Engelbert Probsting, p. t., clerk of the Synod,
written to me in the name and by order of the Reverend Deputies of
both Synods, I was much strengthened to continue the difficult work
of the ministry, which I had undertaken."
A reference to Rupp's Thirty Thousand Names, shows that
Captain John Stedman arrived at Philadelphia, with the ship
Saint Andrew Galley from Rotterdam September 26. 1737. old
style, (or October 5th. new style, as stated by Dorsius). For
some reason, however, the name of Dorsius does not appear
among those who qualified at the court house in Philadelphia on
that day. The ship brought another Dutch candidate of the-
ology, John Herman Van Basten, who preached in the churches
at Jamaica, Oyster Bay and Newtown, 1739-40. A third min-
ister came with the same ship, John Philip Streiter. He preached
later in the Lutheran churches at Indianfield, Old Goshenhoppen
and Alsace, near Reading:.
MINISTRY OF DORSIUS, I737-I743.
True to their word, the Dutch people of Neshaminy paid the
passage money of their newly-arrived minister on September 28,
1737, only two days after his arrival. The bill of Captain Sted-
man and a receipt of Dorsius are still preserved among the
papers of the congregation. The captain charged him £15 for
transporting him and his goods. £1.10 for duty in England and
£2.10 for fresh provisions in England, a total of £19. On
September 28th, Dorsius gave his consistory a receipt for
£26.15.2, which covered all his traveling expenses.
Shortly after the arrival of the new pastor (in the course of
the year 1738) efforts were made to collect money for the erec-
tion of a meeting house. A badly torn paper, which contained
the names of fifty subscribers, is still preserved. The names of
only twenty-five subscribers are legible. They signed for
£61.0.6. If the other twenty-five gave just as much, the total
amounted probably to £122. Several receipts throw light on
54 LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HENRY DORSIUS
the cost of the building. On January 8, 1739, Evan Thomas, the
builder, gave receipt for £25.12.6. On April 28, 1738, Henry
Croesen, the treasurer, was ordered to pay £2.5.10, to William
Moses for lime. On May 15, 1738, Joseph Roberts receipted for
£1.14.2, for sawing logs. On March 17, 1738, Isaac Williams
handed in a receipt for £9, for boards sold and delivered, and
on March 14, 1739, William Lukens gave receipt for £5.0.10,
for lime "brought at ye Dutch congregation." From these re-
ceipts we may conclude that the building operations continued
approximately from April 1738 to March 1739.
Another list, still preserved, contains the names and sums,
subscribed by twenty-four persons towards the purchase of a
church farm. The following persons subscribed a total of
£96.5.0 for this purpose: Gerret Kroesen, Benjamin Korsen,
Frans Kroese, Hendrik Kroese, Abraham Bennet, Jr., Jacobus
van Sant, Jr., Jan Kroese, Derrick Kroese, Derrick Hooghlandt,
Nicolas Winkoop, Gerret Winkoop, Jane Wagelom, Falker
Vaestrat, Abraham Stevens, Jost Boskerk, Gerret Winkoop, Jr.,
Jan Dorlandt, Cornells Kroese, Cornells Winkoop, Jacob Bennet,
Jr., Lambert Dorlandt, Isaak Bennet, Hendrik Slegt, Lambert
Van Dyck.
On January 18, 1739, Gerret Hugtenbergh made an agreement
with Abraham Van der Grift and Henry Kroesen to sell them a
tract of land "lying in Bybery, in the county of Philadelphia,"
containing ninety-six acres for £245, P'ennsylvania currency.
It was bounded as follows : "Beginning at a corner by land of
Nathaniel Britteins, thence northwest by the said land to a cor-
ner of land of Jennewell Coopers, thence by the said land north-
east to land of Margaret Grooms, thence by the said land south
to land of William Homers, thence by the said land and land of
Thomas Womslys southwest to the place of beginning."
Having traced the history of the congregation to this point, we
must return to the question, how Dorsius carried out the com-
mission of the Synodical Deputies to investigate and report upon
the condition of the Reformed churches of Pennsylvania. In
order to make the report of Dorsius more definite, the Deputies
concluded to send him a set of questions. A circular letter to the
Classes, constituting the Synod of South Holland, was drawn up.
Their answers were then collated and on their basis a set of thir-
LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HENRY DORSIUS 55
teen questions was prepared, which were ready to be sent off in
May 1738. On June 9, 1738, Rev. E. Probsting, clerk of the
Deputies, forwarded these questions, accompanied by a letter, to
Dorsius. At the same meeting of the Deputies, in June 1738, a
letter arrived, written by Dorsius from Bucks county, on March
1, 1738.'^ It contained some (though rather inaccurate and mis-
leading) information about the Reformed churches in Pennsyl-
vania.
About Philadelphia, Dorsius reported that it had no (Re-
formed) minister and was not able to support one. We know
that Mr. Boehm was the regular pastor at Philadelphia, who
preached there once a month. About Germantown he reported,
that they had a nice church, but a miserable preacher, who was
inclined to the Quakers. This refers no doubt to John Bechtel,
but that he was inclined to the Quakers is fictitious. About young
Goetschius, son of the Swiss minister, who reached Philadelphia
in 1735, he reported that, although unordained, he was preaching
and administering the sacraments. This is confirmed by other
documents. Regarding Conestoga he reported that two unedu-
cated laymen were preaching there, whom the people refused to
hear any longer, because they were teaching Quaker and other
doctrines. These two laymen were most likely John Conrad
Tempelman and John Jacob Hock. Here again the Quaker
teaching is purely imaginary, all other sources testifying the
very opposite. They were most faithful and true to the Re-
formed standards. He also refers to Peter Miller, who had
fallen away from the Reformed faith and had carried over with
him to the Dunkers (so he said), three hundred souls of whom
many were ready to return, if they could be supplied with ortho-
dox preachers. The number "three hundred" is greatly exag-
gerated. There were hardly three dozens. Boehm reports^ ten
families as having gone over to the Dunkers with Miller. Re-
garding Bucks county, Dorsius reports the building of a new
church, to which we have already referred. He also stated that
there was no necessity to consult in church matters the governor
of Pennsylvania or the Bishop of London. Finally he empha-
6 Thi.s letter is preserved in the minutes of the Synodical Deputies, now
at The Hague.
7 See Life and Letters of the Rev. John Philip Boehm, Philadelphia, 1916,
p. 275.
56 LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HENRY DORSIUS
sized the need of five or six orthodox German Reformed
ministers.
How superficial this report was can be seen from the fact that
it made absolutely no reference to the remarkable work of the
Rev. John Philip Boehm, then the only ordained German Re-
formed minister in the province. Moreover, there is in this re-
port hardly a single item that is entirely correct, and many of
them are but half true. There was, however, in the report one
valuable suggestion, for which Dorsius deserves credit. He sug-
gested, that one man be appointed for Pennsylvania, whose duty
it should be to visit the churches annually, ascertain how much
they could contribute to a minister's salary and then report the
deficiency to Holland, that it might be supplied from the funds
in the hands of the Deputies. The average annual salary of
ministers he reported as being sixty to eighty pounds. This sug-
gestion of Dorsius regarding a "visitor of the churches" was
actually carried out by Michael Schlatter, sent as such to Penn-
sylvania by the Church of Holland in 1746.
In October 1738, the Deputies concluded to write to Dorsius,
requesting him to find out how much the Reformed people in
the colony were willing to contribute to the salaries of pastors.
If the answers were satisfactory, they were willing to send over
five ministers, as requested by Dorsius. On December 20, 1738.
Do. Probsting wrote a letter to Dorsius. in which he acquainted
him with the resolutions passed by the Synod of South Holland
regarding the Pennsylvania churches. In this letter he also ad-
vised Dorsius that Count Zinzendorf intended to go to Pennsyl-
vania and he warned him against his teaching, sending him at
the same time copies of the books published by Zinzendorf, as
well as a Pastoral Letter, issued by the Classis of Amsterdam
against him.
In March 1739, Wilhelmius reported that he had received a
letter from Dorsius, in which he declared that his work was pros-
perous and that he engaged in it with much satisfaction, as he
enjoyed the respect and love of his people.
While Dorsius did not deign to mention Boehm in his first
letter to the Deputies, the latter refers to him in a letter, written
about the same time, March 10, 1738. to the Classis of Amster-
dam. He writes :®
8 See Life and Letters of Boehm, p. 259f.
LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HENRY DORSIUS 57
"Last fall Do. Dorsius arrived as the regular minister of the Low
Dutch congregation at Neshaminy in Bucks county. With him there
came another, named Van Basten, who however is not yet ordained.
Nevertheless, he travels about in the country here and there. He says
that he has been sent from Holland, but thus far he has not caused us
any pleasure at all."
When the questions of the Deputies, sent to Pennsylvania in
June 1738, reached Dorsius, he invited Boehm to a conference at
his house. This conference took place on November 28, 1738,
when "his Reverence showed me his letters from the Christian
Synods of North and South Holland, in which I saw that these
Christian Synods had appointed his Reverence as their commis-
sioner and inspector of the German churches in Pennsylvania.
Then his Reverence requested me to make a report, which I was
ready to do, out of due respect to the Christian Synods."''
Dorsius asked Boehm to report on three questions :
(1) How many German Reformed congregations there were
in Pennsylvania and how far they were from each other?
(2) How many elders, deacons and communicants there were
in each of his congregations and how many congregations were
served by him ?
(3) How each congregation was supplied with schoolmasters
and precentors ?
In answer to these questions, Boehm prepared an elaborate re-
port, dated January 14, 1739, in which he gave accurate informa-
tion about nine congregations, their members, elders, church
buildings and schoolmasters. How kindly Boehm felt towards
Dorsius at this time is evident from the following reference,
sent to the Classis of Amsterdam in a letter, dated March 16,
1739 :i"
"His Reverence, Mr. Dorsius, whom the Christian Synods have
now been pleased to appoint as superintendent^^ of our true Church in
Pennsylvania, shows indeed a real zeal faithfully to do all he can for
the Church of Jesus in this country. To this end God has blessed him
with wisdom. May the God of all strength further increase in his
9 See Life and Letters of Boehm, p. 262.
10 See Life and Letters of Boehm. p. 264.
11 The Deputies had not appointed Dorsius either as superintendent or in-
spector, because botli of tliese offices were unknown to tlie constitution of
their church. Dorsius made use of this title in his communication to Boehm
(See Life of Boehm. p. 271). In a letter of May 9, 1743, the Classis stated
distinctly : "This is certain, he is no insjiector of the church in your regions,'
p. 373. The Deputies had not sent Dorsius to Pennsylvania and hence
they had not appointed him to any ofHce whatsoever. They had simply
asked him for some information.
58 LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HENRY DORSIUS
Reverence this zeal and wisdom, so that, as a true instrument in God's
hand, he may serve our true Church untiringly vv^ith manly steadfast-
ness to the praise of God and the increase of the Kingdom of our
Redeemer."
Another request for information was submitted by Dorsius to
Boehm on December 6, 1739, when he asked him in the name of
the Synods to inquire "what each family is wiUing to contribute
towards the support of a minister within the congregation or to
a yearly salary, in order that the friendly request of the Reverend
Synod be complied with."
In answer to this request, Boehm made a long journey of about
three hundred miles in the depth of a severe winter, during the
months of January, February and March 1740, to interview the
Reformed congregations. As a result he reported of seventeen
congregations pledges to the amount of one hundred and twenty-
three pounds and one hundred and sixty-five bushels of oats.
He made also additional reports, in which he showed how these
congregations might be served by six ministers in six pastoral
charges.
On the basis of these reports of Boehm, Dorsius wrote a letter
to the Synods, on March 4. 1740, which was read before the
Deputies in their meeting of September 11-15, 1740. In this he
answered their question as to the amounts the congregations were
willing to contribute to ministerial salaries. It should, however,
be noted that Dorsius apparently gave Boehm no credit for the
work he had done, but reaped all the praise of the Deputies for
himself. It is not surprising that this conduct was soon followed
by bad consequences. When Boehm heard that Dorsius, instead
of sending his reports to Holland, had constructed another report
upon their basis, he felt much offended. This is clearly indicated
by Boehm. At a later interview he had with Dorsius, he asked
him whether he had sent his report to Holland. Dorsius
answered :
"No, he had it in his trunk, but he had written to the Christian
Synods with regard to these things. I did not like this, for I had been
riding through the country about three hundred miles in the severest
winter season. We had some words between us; however, nothing un-
seemly. Among other things his Reverence remarked, the affair had
been entrusted to him and he knew what to do. He had kept the re-
port for his own safety. To which I answered: 'To me it does not
seem right that the light which makes clear the whole condition of our
LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HENRY DORSIUS 59
congregations to our devout Church Fathers, who manifest such a
holy zeal for our churches, should be seen by your Reverence only and
kept in your trunk, and not brought to those who desire to see it; for
it seems to me that the report, together with your additional report,
should have been sent to them."'^
Some time afterwards some men from Goshenhoppen came to
see Boehm and asked him whether the reports had been sent off
by Dorsius. Boehm answered truthfully that Dorsius had told
him that they were in his trunk, but that he had written, in his
own words, about them to Holland. When Dorsius came on a
visit to Goshenhoppen, on September 24, 1740, the elders asked
him about the reports which they had given to Boehm, whether
they had been sent to Holland. Dorsius said : Yes. Then
they confronted him with the statement of Boehm, that they were
in his trunk. This made Dorsius furious and he exclaimed; "If
Boehm says that I have not sent the letters which he wrote re-
garding the church to Holland, he lies like a scoundrel." These
and other contemptuous words, uttered by Dorsius at that oc-
casion, were of course related to Boehm and resulted in a com-
plete breach in their friendship and intercourse. Henceforth
Boehm refused to send any more letters to Holland through
Dorsius, but he transmitted his reports, through the Dutch Re-
formed ministers of New York, to the Classis of Amsterdam.
There was another reason for the break between Dorsius and
Boehm and that was the former's attitude towards young Goet-
schius. Boehm regarded him as a disturber of the peace, who
intruded into a number of his congregations, trying to take them
away from Boehm, especially Tulpehocken, Oley and Skippack.
Dorsius on the other hand encouraged him in his irregular work.
There was, it is true, a reconciliation between Boehm and Goet-
schius, at the home of Dorsius, in February 1740, when he asked
Boehm's forgiveness, which the latter gladly granted him. But,
as Goetschius did not keep his promise to stay away from Boehm's
congregations, there was soon again bitter feeling. When in
1739 the deputies of the Synods insisted that the churches
should dismiss the unordained preachers, before they could ex-
pect assistance from Holland, Goetschius gave up his preaching,
went to Dorsius and studied with him for a year and was then
ordained, on April 7, 1741, by Dorsius, assisted by Frelinghuisen
12 Life and Letters of Boehm, p. 321.
60 LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HENRY DORSIUS
and Gilbert Tennent, the Presbyterian minister at New Bruns-
wick, New Jersey. This unauthorized action was severely con-
demned by Boehm and met with similar disapproval in Holland.^''
Another important undertaking was committed to Dorsius in
1739. Through a letter written by Rev. E. Probsting on May 3,
1739, Dorsius together with Dr. Diemer, of Philadelphia, were
given a power of attorney to prosecute Reiff, in order to com-
pel him to give an accounting of the moneys collected by him in
Holland. But, as Diemer himself was deeply involved in the
case, the appointment was unfortunate and no results were
achieved, except that some letters were exchanged between
Diemer and the Deputies. On November 18, 1742, Diemer wrote
to the Synod :^"'
"I received in the year 1740 a letter, which the Rev. Mr. Ernest
Probsting, Deputy of the Reverend Synod, had written at Heusden,
under date May 3, 1739, and I received besides, in the aforesaid year,
in December, a copy of a special letter to the Governor of Pennsylvania,
dated April 15, 1739, at The Hague, in which authority was given to
Rev. Mr. Dorsius and rhyself to prosecute the still pending suit against
Jacob Reiff, of Skippack, in Pennsylvania, in which an appeal was made
by the Reverend Deputies to the Governor. Immediately on the re-
ceipt of the letter aforesaid, I was informed that his Excellency, the
Governor, promised to assist us, but the circumstances of the war be-
tween the English and the Spanish crowns [1739-1742] have until now
prevented such aid, on account of many special engagements."
On December 16, 1740, Dorsius was married to Janneka (Jane)
Hooghland, daughter of Derrick Hooghland. They had three
children: (1) Maria, baptized Dec. 26, 1742; (2) Jannetie, bap-
tized Jan. 13, 1745, and (3) Cornelia Charlotte, baptized Oct.
5, 1746. These baptisms are entered in his own record.
In the year 1741, the Deputies sent one hundred and thirty Ger-
man Bibles to Pennsylvania which cost them £l,18s.9d., and
which they had secured at Frankford-on-the-Main. They were
sent through Messrs. Hope, merchants at Rotterdam. They con-
signed them in part to Do. Dorsius, in part to Do. Frelinghuisen,
of Raritan, New Jersey. x\s a result neither of them able to
get them. On February 16, 1744, Dorsius wrote to the Deputies
regarding these Bibles :^^
13 The Classis of Amsterdam compelled Goetschius to be reordained in
1748. See Corwin, Manual of the Reformed Church in America. 4th ed.,
1902, p. 491.
14 The original is in The Hague archives. Its catalogue number is 74, I. 38.
15 The original is at The Hague. Catalogue number 74, I, 20.
LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HENRY DORSIUS 61
"The High German Bibles which were sent to Do. Frehnghuisen and
to myself, to distribute them among the poor High Germans in this
country, I have not been able to get thus far, although I was twice in
Philadelphia and tried to secure them. The reasons given were that
the chests were not properly marked and did not contain my name.
But these are only excuses, for the captain who brought them no doubt
gave information regarding them, as he also brought the letters of the
Reverend ministers of Rotterdam, namely Mr. John Wilhelmius,
Doctor of Theology, and Rev. Van der Kemp, Deputy of the Synod.
On one of the chests is written simply 'Libri Compacti' and on the
other '50 Bibles.' For this reason inquiries should be made of the
gentleman to whom they were handed to send them to Pennsylvania,
and he should be asked to write, with the first opportunity, to Benjamin
Shoemaker, merchant at Philadelphia and correspondent of the shippers
in Rotterdam."
VISIT OF DORSIUS TO HOLLAND, MAY 1 743 JANUARY 1/44.
In September 1743, the Deputies of the Synods were much sur-
prised to hear that Do. Dorsius had arrived in Holland. He had
left Nev^ York on May 26, 1743, and had arrived at Amsterdam
on July 14th. Shortly afterwards he appeared before the Synod
of North Holland, held at Hoorn. July 26-27th. He made a re-
port to Synod regarding the condition of the Reformed churches
in Pennsylvania. On September 17-19, 1743, he appeared before
the Deputies at The Hague. They questioned him closely about
a number of things. They asked him, first of all, what would be-
come of the German Bibles in his absence. He answered that, if
they should be delivered, they would be entirely safe at his home
until his return. They then inquired w^hat he and Dr. Diemer
had done about the Reifif case. He answered, that he had seen
Dr. Diemer repeatedly, but he did not seem to be in a hurry about
it, and, as far as he was able to tell, nothing had been accom-
plished. But, he added, that on his journey to New York he had
interviewed Dr. Diemer again and he had told him that he had
already spent twenty pounds in this afl^air and was willing to
spend more to bring it to a conclusion. The Deputies then asked,
why he had not answered their letter sent to him and Do. Fre-
hnghuisen in 1741. He replied that this letter had never reached
him. Finally they asked him, why he had come to Holland. He
answered that he wished to consult the Deputies about his work.
62 LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HENRY DORSIUS
He also hoped to get their consent either to leave his congrega-
tion in Bucks county, or to organize another congregation in
Philadelphia, because his salary was insufficient and he needed
additional means for his subsistence. His salary had been re-
duced from sixty-eight to forty pounds. He then gave them a
long report about the condition of the churches in Pennsylvania,
which he made as gloomy as possible and thereby defeated his
own purpose. He reported that the churches were constantly de-
creasing through apostasy and the remarkable growth of the
Moravians, as well the activities of Catholic missionaries. He
.also stated that he could see no hope for the churches in Pennsyl-
vania, unless more ministers were sent there and they were guar-
anteed a sufficient salary, because the salaries paid them were
altogether inadequate.
In spite of the lengthy report given by Dorsius, the Deputies
concluded that they did not have sufficient light regarding the
actual condition of afifairs in Pennsylvania, so as to be able to
help the churches intelligently. They, therefore, addressed a let-
ter to the ministers and elders of the Reformed churches of Penn-
sylvania, asking them to give the Synods of Holland definite and
detailed information, signed by the various consistories, regarding
their actual condition, so that they might be able to judge by what
means they could best help them. They also inquired whether it
would be possible for the Reformed churches to unite with the
Scotch Synod, by which they meant the Presbyterian Synod of
Pennsylvania. This letter, dated September 20, 1743, was handed
to Dorsius. Before Dorsius left, the Deputies gave him thirty
guilders to help him pay his traveling expenses to Holland, and
also twenty guilders to pay the freight of the Bibles sent to Penn-
sylvania. They also permitted Dorsius either to accept another
call or to start another congregation.
Dorsius did not stay in Holland longer than was absolutely
necessary. In a letter, written to the Deputies in June 1749, he
thus explains his reasons for his hurried return :^®
"I could not tarry in Holland, because on the one hand, I feared that
war might break out between France and England, which would render
the Spanish Sea which we had to cross very unsafe and dangerous for
travelers, as we experienced to our sorrow in the spring, and on the
other hand, because my own domestic affairs had not been so arranged
16 The original is in The Hague archives, 74, II, 12.
LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HENRY DORSIUS 63
that I could remain any longer in Holland. Moreover a very good
opportunity presented itself for me to bear the expenses of the journey
more easily and thus to return home."
Dorsius left Holland on October 19, 1743. old style, and ar-
rived at Philadelphia, in good health on January 16, 1744.
MINISTRY OF DORSIUS, 1 744- 1 748.
Shortly after his return, on February 16, 1744, Dorsius wrote
a letter to the Deputies, in which he announced his safe arrival
in Pennsylvania and declared that he had sent off the letter of the
Deputies to the German churches, in a German translation, that
he had consulted with two of the Presbyterian ministers in Phila-
delphia about the union of the German churches with the Synod
of Philadelphia and that they had promised him to submit the
matter to the next meeting of the Synod. ^^ He also reported a
conference with Dr. Diemer, who had promised to address a pe-
tition to the Governor of Pennsylvania regarding the Reiff case.
During this period of his activity. Dorsius preached repeatedly
to German congregations and administered the Lord's Supper to
them, a work which he had begun even before his journey to
Holland. In one of his own letters^* he reports preaching "free
of charge several times at Philadelphia, either in the Swedish
church, or in a meeting house, hired at that time for the use of
the German congregation." Several church records refer to this
missionary activity. Thus the New Goshenhoppen record shows
that he preached and baptized there on September 24. 1740,
August 30, 1741, September 4. 1742, and on May 5, 1744.^'' The
Egypt record presents evidence that he preached and baptized
children at Saucon on September 23, 1740; while the letters of
Boehm establish his presence and preaching at Germantown on
Easter day 1744. at New Goshenhoppen on May 6, 1744. and at
Conestoga on July 8. 1744. There is also a reference to a journey
to the Minisink region.-"
17 The letters exchanged between the Deputies and the Presbyterian Synod
of Philadelphia in 1744-1747, were published in full by the Rev. J. I. Good,
D.D.. in the Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society. Vol. Ill, pp.
122-i37
18 It is in the letter, dated June 1749.
19 See the publication of this record by the writer in Mr. Dotterer's Perkio-
men Region. Vol. Ill, p. 121f; and in the History of the Goshenhoppen Re-
formed Charge, p. 284f.
20 See Life and Letters of Boehm. p. 339.
64 LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HENRY DORSIUS
We have no information about Dorsius during the year 1745.
But on September 16, 1746, the Rev. Michael Schlatter, sent by
the Synods of Holland to organize the Reformed churches of
Pennsylvania, traveled sixteen miles from Philadelphia to Bucks
county to interview Dorsius, to whom he showed his instructions
and letters from the synods. Dorsius received him "in a most
friendly and fraternal manner," offered to render him every pos-
sible assistance, promised to organize his consistory and report to
him the result. Schlatter reports that the elders showed him a
"new stone church," which was process of erection. ^^ In his
private diary, sent to Holland in December 1746, Schlatter gives
the first intimation that there was trouble in his congregation, for
he writes : "Of Do. Dorsius I cannot report anything certain at
present, inasmuch as I will not believe the bad reports which are
here and there circulated about him, before I have convinced
myself of their truth. "--
Dorsius was not present at the preliminary meeting, leading'
to the organization of the Coetus (or Convention) of the Re-
formed churches of Pennsylvania, which was held at Philadelphia
October 12, 1746. But he informed Schlatter "in a friendly letter,
that he was unable to attend on account of domestic arrange-
ments."-^ In his private diary Schlatter explains that on the day
of the conference-"' the wife of Dorsius had given birth to a
child. This is corroborated by his church record. See the state-
ment above for the year 1740.
But, although Dorsius had oiTered to assist Schlatter in every
way possible, he was not in full sympathy with his mission and
plan. This is evident from a letter which Dorsius addressed to
him January 19, 1747,-^ in answer to a letter of Schlatter. In
this letter he informed Schlatter, that neither he (Dorsius) nc"
his consistory considered themselves under obligation to submit
to an examination by Schlatter, that Schlatter's desire was in
conflict with his instructions from Holland, which restricted him
to the German churches. Moreover, he served notice on Schlatter
that his congregation did not consider itself as being under the
supervision of any Dutch Classis, nor had any intention of plac-
21 Schlatter's Life and Travels, p. 129.
22 See the diary as published by the writer in Journal of Presbyterian
Historical Society. Vol. Ill, p. 118.
23 Schlatter s Life and Travels, p. 136.
24 See Journal of Presbyterian Historical Society, Vol. Ill, p. 116.
25 Now at The Hague, 74, I, 51 (12).
LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HENRY DORSIUS 65
ing itself under them, so that, according to their opinion, Schlat-
ter was stretching his authority in his effort to include them.
He warned Schlatter by his own experience several years be-
fore, when he had made a similar effort, to his own grief and
loss. He also notified Schlatter that a week after his visit his
consistory had met, which, when Schlatter's demand had been
submitted to them, had refused absolutely to allow any examina-
tion to be made, inasmuch as they had asked the Church of Hol-
land for a minister merely, but not for an examiner. They de-
clared, however, that Do. Dorsius would be ready to give Schlat-
ter any information he 'might wish to have and in a postscript
added that a friendly visit by Schlatter would be welcome.
But the career of Dorsius in Pennsylvania came to an unex-
pected end in the year 1748. On May 2, 1748, three members of
the consistory at Xeshaminy, Hendrik Croesen, Jacob Bennet
and Jacob Van der Grift, addressed a letter to Schlatter,--' in
which they informed him that they had paid him a visit at his
house, but had not found him at home. They asked him to come
to Bucks county on June 2nd or if not to notify them. As Schlat-
ter started on his journey to Virginia May 3, 1748, the letter did
not reach him till his return. May 21st. On June 23rd, he writes
in his journal: "I went to Northampton [Bucks county], upon
the earnest solicitations of the congregation, and preached for
the Dutch congregation of Mr. Dorsius, for the first time, as
well as I could in their language. My efforts to abate the strife
existing between minister and congregation were fruitless ; and,
as Mr. Dorsius continues in his purpose to go over to Holland,
I promised to visit them once a month to preach for them in the
week."-^
The rest of the sad story is told in two notices which appeared
in the Pennsylvania Gazette. On June 9, 1748, Dorsius notified
the public that his wife had eloped from him and hence he warned
people "not to trust her on his account," as he would not pay her
debts. This notice was answered, on June 16, 1748, by Derrick
Hogeland, his father-in-law, by the following statement :
"Whereas Peter Henry Dorsius did some weeks since advertise his
wife Jane as eloped from him, etc. This is to certify whom it may con-
cern, that after a long series of ill-usage, patiently borne by the said
26 Also at The Hague. 74, I, 51 (13).
27 Schlatter's Life and Travels, p. 180.
66 LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HENRY DORSIUS
Jane and a course of intemperance and extravagance, for which he has
been suspended from the exercise of his ministerial office in the Dutch
congregation in Southampton; when he had squandered most of his
substance, sold and spent a great part of his household goods and was
about to sell the remainder, though he had before in his sober hours
by direction of a magistrate made them over for the use of his family,
when he had for several days abandoned his dwelling and left his wife
and three children nothing to subsist on, her father found himself at
length under a necessity to take her and them into his care and protec-
tion and accordingly fetched them home to his own house, which he
would not otherwise have done, having beside a large family of his
own to provide for.
DERRICK HOGELAND."
After such an exposure, Dorsius could not hope to maintain
himself in Pennsylvania. Hence he left Philadelphia on August
4, 1748, on a ship which was bound for Dublin, Ireland. Forced
by contrary wind to enter the harbor of Belfast, Dorsius found
there another sloop to take him to Rotterdam, where he arrived
on October 1, 1748, old style. In Holland he assisted at first
several sick ministers at Rotterdam and Maas Sluys. Later he
became assistant to the minister of the Count of Isselstein. From
Isselstein he addressed a letter to the Deputies in June 1749, in
which he related at length his experiences in Pennsylvania. He
gave as his reason for his return to Holland the fact that his
salary had decreased so much that he was unable to live on it.
On May 24, 1749, he appeared before the Deputies at The Hague.
He handed to them a written report, and offered to make an oral
statement at the meeting of the Synod of South Holland, held
July 8-18, 1749, at The Hague, which he did. But the Synod re-
ferred his case to the Deputies for consideration.
On January 20-23, 1750, Dorsius appeared again before the
Deputies and asked for a dismission to go to d'Elmina, a sea port
of the Gold Coast, West Africa. But, after examining their
minutes, the Deputies concluded that, as they had not called him
to Bucks county, they could not dismiss him, but that he would
have to address himself to his former congregation for a dismissal.
On May 27-29, 1750, the Deputies received a letter from Mrs.
Dorsius,^® in which she stated that she had been married to
Dorsius December 16, 1740. She complained bitterly about his
conduct during their married life, and that after his suspension
28 Recorded in the minutes of the Deputies.
LIFE AND WORK OF THE REV. PETER HENRY DORSIUS 67
by the consistory, he had abandoned her and their three children.
At the Synod of South Holland, held at Woerden on July 1750.
the case of Dorsius and his wife was once more referred to the
Deputies for settlement.
It also came before the Classis of Amsterdam. On January
13, 1750, the directors of the West India Company notified the
Classis that they had appointed Dorsius as minister to d'Elmina,
and asked the Classis to confirm the call. The latter replied that
they had no objection to the appointment, provided Dorsius would
prove his legal dismission from Pennsylvania and submit a testi-
monial of his character.-'' To the repeated requests of the Classis,
Dorsius failed to make a satisfactory reply. Finally, on October
5, 1750, the Classis was informed by the Synodical Deputies re-
garding the facts in the case and that the whereabouts of Dorsius
was unknown. These facts were ordered to communicated to the
West India Company. ^"^ This ended the career of Dorsius in the
Dutch Church. What became of him afterwards is unknown.
His wife was for many years supported by the Coetus of
Pennsylvania. On April 26, 1753, the Coetus voted £8 for her
support, including £6 given by the Synod of North Holland. ^^
From that date she received a yearly subsidy varying in amounts
from £4 to £10. In 1757 she is called for the first time "Widow
Dorsius" in the minutes,^- hence her husband must have died
sometime between June 1756 and August 1757. Donations to
her are on record from 1753-1776.
The ministry of Dorsius from 1737-1748 closed the second
chapter in the history of the Dutch Reformed congregation of
Bucks county.
29 See Ecclesiastical Records of Neiv York, Vol. IV, p. 3105.
30 1. «c. p. 3188.
31 See Minutes of Coetus. p. 87.
32 1. c. p. 160.
Gristmills of an Ancient Type Known as Norse Mills.
BY HORACE M. MANN, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Doylestown Meeting, January 19, 1918.)
THE result of my trip to the Big Smoky region of western
North Carohna during the month of October, 1917, was the
finding, amongst many other nearly equally interesting and
important specimens, of an old type of water power gristmill
described by Mitchell in his Past in the Present, published by
David Douglass, Edinburgh, 1880, as a "Norse Mill."
Mitchell describes this remarkable gristmill known as the
Norse Mill still to be found in 1880 in the Shetland and Orkney
Islands, and probably introduced there from Norway. At the
time I had the honor to become associated with this interesting
work Dr. Mercer had supposed that mills of this type had once
been built in the United States and still survived in the mountain
region of western North Carolina. After considerable corre-
spondence the evidence of the existence of such mills seemed
sufficient to justify a trip to that part of the country.
On the 8th day of October I started for White Rock, Madison
county. North Carolina, and the result is the complete Norse Mill
now standing in the northwest corridor of the fourth floor of our
museum. The details of the trip are of no moment. Sufficient
to say that after making many inquiries at Asheville, Marshall,
and other places en route which did not give me any further in-
formation, I started from White Rock on Saturday, October 13th,
to examine the mills which our correspondent. Dr. George H.
Packard, of that place, had found for us. The trip was entirely
on horseback over narrow mountain trails with few widely scat-
tered cabins along the way.
The first mill of this kind was found on the Big Laurel Creek,
Madison county, N. C. It belonged to a man named Lige Wilds,
about one mile from Jasper Shelton's store. The man himself
was absent but the door stood open and you may well imagine
my satisfaction with the first sight of a mill that in all its essen-
tials was a true type of the Norse Mill. Proceeding to the store
I found Mr. Wilds, but he absolutely refused to consider an oflfer
i\orse Mill recently In use in Madison County, North Carolina, now
in the Bucks County Historical Society, illustrating- paper on the Xorse
Mill by Mr. Horace M. Mann.
GRISTMILLS OF AN ANCIENT TYPE 69
for the mill saying, "It was built by 'Pappy' and he didn't reckon
he cared to part with it." A small man buying some nails then
spoke up and said he owned a similar mill and would be willing
to sell it. As he lived some distance back along the trail that we
had just come over I took his name, Amos Capts, and promised
him a call on my way back and proceeded further to see other
mills that Dr. Packard had found.
Since I had found the mill I had made the trip for, the only
consideration now was which mill I could secure the cheapest
and transport to the railroad. This type of mill was called by
the mountain men of the "Laurel Section," of Madison county,
a "Corn Mill," "Tub Wheel," (See notes on Tub Wheels by Dr.
H. C. Mercer at end of the sketch) or a "Willis Wheel." The first
name speaks for itself, as in those mountains corn is by far the
principal crop, though as some little wheat is raised it naturally
would be ground on the same mills ; the second name is due to
the appearance of the water wheel which does resemble a wide
shallow tub ; the origin of the last name I could not find out, they
simply said it was always called that. I also heard the mill re-
ferred to as a "Blockade Mill," one used for grinding corn for
the making of blockade whiskey. Of course I never found them
using the name, "Norse Mill,"
The next mill Dr. Packard had discovered was also on the Big
Laurel which at this point had diminished to a small rapid moun-
tain stream hardly meriting its name of Big Laurel. The mill
belonged to a man named J. J. Rice. It, too, was a true type of
Norse Mill and this man was willing to bargain concerning it
but I thought the price. $75 for the mill and $80 for the stones,
somewhat excessive, so passed on to inspect the last mill found
by Dr. Packard. This was situated a considerable distance from
the first two on a branch of the Big Laurel, called the Punching-
fork. Here I found a genial old man of French descent, Gustave
Porchia, (pronounced Porchey), whose father came from
France about 1850 as a traveling player of the barrel organ. His
mill had originally been a Norse Mill but he had, on account of
diminishing water power, cut ofif the shaft of the water-wheel
below the spindle, attached a belt wheel to the shaft, moved the
mill stones some distance away and attached another belt wheel
to the lower end of the spindle in its new position, giving him a
70 GRISTMILLS OF AN ANCIENT TYPE
mill with belt counter drive, and greater speed. His price of
$500 was so excessive that I left without further bargaining.
Returning over the trail I was stopped by the Mr. Rice, men-
tioned before as owner of the second mill I had seen, who now
seemed more anxious to sell but I refused to close a bargain until
I had seen the Amos Capts mill which I had heard of at the
Shelton store. I arrived at the home of Mr. Capts about dark
and he very cordially insisted that I should spend the night with
him if I could "put up with his fare, for he lived plain." It was
then too dark to go to see his mill and though I had some doubts
in regard to the fare, still I could do no better by going on and
he made up by his cordial welcome what he lacked in style. His
one-story house, built entirely of logs, roughtly hewn at the points
of intersection and chinked with clay, was rather superior to the
usual log cabin of the mountaineer. This cabin had originally,
no doubt, been composed of one room only about twenty-five
feet long by fifteen feet wide with the chimney built at the north
end. But the needs of an increasing family had made necessary
a larger dwelling and two more rooms had been added, not at the
gable end but at the side, after which the three buildings were
re-roofed at right angles to the original roof, so that all rooms
were now under the one roof, making a dwelling about forty-five
feet long by twenty-five feet wide. The first addition communi-
cated with the old cabin but the last addition had no direct access
to the other two rooms. A door leading to a porch passing along
the side of the first two rooms was the only entrance. On enter-
ing, the first room of the old cabin was found to be the living
room of the family. Here the most striking feature was the
open fire place. The chimney for which was built on the out-
side of the house at the middle of the original gable end of the
old cabin and was the only chimney for the whole dwelling. It
wa's built of undressed sand stone laid in clay mortar much the
same as was used in chinking the logs of the house. The fire
place was about five feet long, by four feet high and about
eighteen inches deep. It was built of the same stone as the
chimney, pointed but not plastered. The hearth which extended
for some distance outside the fire place was paved with large
stones and the jambs of the fire place drew together to support
one large stone about three feet long forming its top in lieu of
GRISTMILLS OF AN ANCIENT TYPE 71
the heavy beam or lintel of Bucks county fire places. The inner
walls of the room were roughly plastered with clay laid di-
rectly on the logs, without any attempt to use laths. On some
parts of the walls newspapers were pasted, both for decoration
and to keep out the cold. No cooking apparatus appeared in the
fire place which was equipped with andirons of wrought iron.
But I'saw no tongs and no crane, trammel or lug pole. I saw no
kettle oven in this cabin, but found them elsewhere in use for
baking corn bread in open fire places. The cooking in this room
was done in a cast iron cooking range equipped for burning wood
in the style of those used in the present farmhouses in Bucks
county. There was no second story to the building and the fami-
ly slept in two beds which I saw in the kitchen and in the other
two rooms. I saw no old blacksmith work upon the doors such
as latches, hinges, etc. There were no shutters or curtains in the
windows. Common modern kerosene lamps with broken chim-
neys furnished what light there was. I noticed a flax spinning
wheel and reel in one corner of the third room which I learned
had not been used by the present generation. The bedding con-
sisted of horse blankets without sheets..
The next morning I went with Mr. Capts to see his mill. It
was in fine condition, answered the requirements in every respect
and his price, $40 delivered at the nearest railroad station, was
less than half any one else had asked me for the mill alone. The
transportation in this mountain country is always a difificult and
costly operation and his offer including the delivery decided me
at once to accept his price. This mill was found in a small one-
story building, hardly more than a "shack." about twenty by
twenty feet wide and twenty feet at the peak of the room. It
was made of rough machine sawed boards roofed with hand
riven pine shingles and with hand-hewn rafters. It was situated
on the sloping bank of a swift mountain stream barely six feet
wide and about six to eight inches deep called Forster's Creek, a
branch of the Big Laurel. The road running parallel with the
creek, and before the door of the mill, appeared to be only a wide
trail, though at all times of the year wagons managed to get
along over it. On entering the mill from this road, I found it was
so constructed that the inner portion of the shed consisted of a
single room on two levels, of about equal size. The upper for
72 GRISTMILLS OF AN ANCIENT TYPE
the mill stones and hopper and the other, about four feet lower,
for the unloading and storage of grain. The portion of structure
immediately under the mill stones, through which the stream
ran, was open on three sides and the vertical space between the
upper and lower floor was boarded, forming the inner side of
the water wheel compartment. This partition was not furnished
with a door. Three wooden steps led from the lower or store-
house level to the upper or mill stone floor, inside the building.
Going out of the building and around to the creek bed on the op-
posite side from the mill entrance, I found the horizontal water
wheel directly under the mill stone. At this point I was able to
see the great simplicity and primitive construction of the appar-
atus which differed from that of any grist mill I had ever seen in
the fact that the mill stones were set upon the vertical shaft of
the water wheel itself and turned with it. There were no cog
wheels, counter wheels, belts, or devices for the transmission of
power. One shaft alone revolved with the water wheel at one
end, the bottom, and the upper mill stone at the other end, the
top. The water wheel was set on a bridge tree about six feet long
by six inches thick crossing the bed of the stream at right angles
furnished with a rough iron step-box mortised about the center
to make a bearing for the toe of the water wheel shaft. One end
of this bridge tree was mortised and pegged into the husk or
frame work surrounding the mill stones, and the other end laid
free on the groimd with a lighter rod fastened to it. The water
wheel itself was about four feet in diameter with the base of the
vertical shaft mortised into its solid wooden center, which center
extended to about eight inches from the rim of the wheel. Be-
tween the rim and the solid center were diagonally inserted hand
forged iron plates in somewhat the shape of an open letter S.
Through the spiral openings facing these plates the water rushed
downward giving the movement to the wheel. The water supply
to drive the wheel was secured from the creek by means of the
forebay, a rough trough open on top about two feet in diameter,
running on the leval from the bed of the stream and occupying
about three-quarters of the breadth of the latter without any dam
or attempt to direct water into it. This trough ran for about
fifteen feet in the direction of the water wheel to within about
five feet of the mill. As the fall of the stream was considerable
GRISTMILLS OF AN ANCIENT TYPE 73
this forebay was supported on a trestle, the props of which were
set directly in the bed of the stream, the latter flowing directly
under the building and also under the water wheel and mill
stones. A,t the end of the forebay toward the mill the trough
narrowed into a penstock or flume about one foot square com-
pletely covered and making a decline of about forty-five degrees.
As the stream at this point flowed downward at a sharp incline,
the end of the flume above mentioned, departing from the stream
at a level, by the time it reached the mill was nearly six feet
above the stream level at the point of the downturning of the pen-
stock. The water was so directed that it struck the water wheel
at the nearest outer portion of its diameter facing up stream. The
mill I secured had been partially dismantled so that I was unable
to bring any portion of this forebay and penstock away but the
above explanation was noted in the mill of Lige Wilds on the Big
Laurel, a mill similar in all respects to the one I secured. On the
upper portion of the mill floor reached by three wooden steps, I
found the mill stones resting on a frame work or husk and set
through the floor planks, the hoop or mill stone box, the curb,
the hopper and the bench or framework supporting it, the shoe,
and a dampsel of wood as shown in the museum. These parts
in general resembling those in use in old gristmills of Bucks
county, whereas the dampsel in the Shetland mill, described by
Mitchell, was differently constructed and his mill stones lacked a
hoop. About two feet to the left of the mill stones the wrought
iron lighter rod extended up through the floor and was sur-
mount by a hand made wrought iron hand wheel or screw for
raising the mill stones. This wheel or screw was furnished with
two arms or handles for turning, about six to eight inches in di-
ameter. The lighter rod, continuing down through the floor for
about four feet, was fastened to a wooden arm or extension,
which in turn was mortised and pegged into the end of the bridge
tree to raise and lower the water wheel, and upper mill stone re-
volving on the top of its vertical shaft, thereby grinding coarse or
fine. A curious point characteristic of the Norse Mill as dis-
tinguished from the common gristmill might be noted here in the
fact that when the bridge-tree is raised by means of this lighter
rod not only the upper mill stone but the water wheel itself goes
up with it. The mill stones are composed of a hard bluish rock
74 GRISTMILLS OF AN ANCIENT TYPE
quarried about sixty years ago, when the mill was first built,
from the side of a neighboring hill, not far from the location of
the mill, according to information of Mr. Capts. At top of the
husk or framework surrounding the water wheel and shaft and
resting on the upper floor of the mill, a circular frame work called
the "curb" is fitted, so that the top of this curb is just level with
the stones at the point of their contact. A trough is notched into
this curb leading downward to a meal box set on the lower por-
tion of the mill floor. The "eye" of the lower mill stone through
which the spindle passes, was filled with a block of soft wood,
hewn to fit and then driven into the "eye" until tight. A hole
was bored in the wooden block for the spindle to pass through
forming a bearing in the nature of a bush as found in the modem
gristmill of Bucks county. This wooden bearing prevented the
leakage of meal around the spindle.
On Monday, October 15, 1917, Mr. Capts' son, Hezekiah, as-
sisted me to take down and load the mill and started out with
six horses to make the sixteen mile trip over the mountain to
Marshall, the nearest railroad station. At the top of Walnut
Mountain four of the horses were sent back by a small boy, also
a son of Capts, as from there on the road would be mostly down
grade. It took all day to make the trip. The next day I crated
the mill on the station platform with lumber bought from Shel-
ton's garage in Marshall and shipped the mill to Doylestown by
Southern Express, October 16. 1917.
I searched in a radius of about fifteen miles around White
Rock, Madison county. North Carolina, in the region called
"The Big Laurel Section," and found three perfect and one
altered Norse Mills. None of which were probably more than
sixty years old.
The mill purchased by me was originally built, according to
the information of its present owner, as a so-called "Blockade
Mill," in other words one to grind corn for distilling illicit or
"moonshine" whiskey.
The Norse Mill with its very small water-wheel revolving
rapidly without counter gear requires a swift and plentiful down-
rush of water and is particularly adapted to streams running
down steep hill sides and to a country where under these cir-
cumstances there is good rainfall. I heard of no mill dams
NOTES ON THE NORSE MILL 75
properly so called in connection with any Norse Mill that came
within my observation. Finally I may say that all the Norse
Mills I observed were constructed in the same manner, all were
about the same size, and all were sheltered by sheds of similar
dimensions and appearance.
Notes on the Norse Mill.
BY DR. HENRY C. MERCER.
(Doylestown Meeting-, Jan. 19, 1918.)
The very comprehensive KiiigJit's America)! Mechanical Dic-
tonary (New York, Hurd & Houton, 1876), does not notice the
very ancient form of grist mill known as the Norse Mill, an ex-
Norse Mill as existing in the Shetland Islands in 1880 from The
Past in the Present, Mitchell Edinburgh, 1880, page 41.
76 NOTES ON THE NORSE MILL
ample of which we have just placed in our museum ; but Mitchell
in his Past in the Present (Edinburgh, Douglas, 1880) page 41,
describes and illustrates it as existing in the Shetland Islands in
1880. I made a drawing of his illustration and showed it here
at our last winter meeting as a supplement to the description of
our hand corn mills or querns, then the subject of discussion/
When I did so I was so satisfied that the type of water gristmill
presented by our other old Bucks county mill on exhibition, rep-
resented the earliest American type, that I was convinced that no
such primitive apparatus as that which we have just obtained,
had ever been used in the United States. But I was mistaken.
A few days later, on discussing the subject of our meeting with
my father, he referred me to a remarkable passage in A Thousand
Mile Walk to the Gulf by John Muir, Boston (Houghton Mififlin
& Co., 1916) page 35, in which Muir the botanist says, that in
1867 he found about twenty corn gristmills in southeastern Ten-
nessee, one of which on the Hiowassee river, about two days walk
from Madisonville, had been built by John Vohn to grind from
■ten to fifteen bushels of corn a day.
Muir describes this mill as equipped with "a small stone that a
man might carry under his arm. which is fastened to the vertical
shaft of a home-made, boyish-looking, back-action waterwheel
which, with a hopper and a box to receive the meal is the whole
affair. The walls of the mill are of undressed poles cut from
seedling trees and there is no floor, as lumber is dear. No dam
is built and the water is conveyed along the hillside until suf-
ficient fall is obtained."
On reading this description I was struck with the words "verti-
cal shaft" and "back-action" and felt convinced that what Muir
had found in 1867, was nothing more or less than the Norse Mill
described by Mitchell and further that if. in 1867, twenty of these
mills had been in use. some might still exist in 1917 or fifty
years later.
Hardly a week had elapsed when a visitor to the museum, Mr.
Fr£^ncis Biddle, just returned from a riding trip in western North
Carolina informed me, after looking at our old Bucks county
mill, that he had seen very primitive water gristmills in the Caro-
lina Mountains, apparently lacking what we know as water
1 Published in Vol. IV, p. 733 et seq.
NOTES ON THE NORSE MILL 17
wheels. Though unable to clearly describe them as Norse Mills
he referred me to Dr. George B. Packard, of White Rock, North
Carolina, and a correspondence followed which resulted in the
latter identifying several mills of the Norse type near that place.
This was followed very shortly by a journey of Dr. William
Edgar Geil to North Carolina, who at my request inquired for
and heard of another mill of this kind in Buncombe county, and
finally, by a systematic exploration of the region by Mr. Horace
M. Mann in October 1917 who found six, and bought and sent
home one of these mills which now stands in our museum as one
of the most remarkable objects in the whole collection, for two
reasons :
First — Because the mill shows a step in the application of
water power to the grinding of meal, more primitive than any-
thing we have thus far found, and second, because the apparatus
belongs to the class of objects which, as concerned with one
of the four great overmastering requirements of life, namely the
preparation of bread for food, is of greater significance than
clocks, signboards, furniture, deeds, county seals, toll-gates and
a thousand other of our possessions which, from a scientific
point of view might be said to be of second, third or fourth class
importance.
When we compare this mill with the Norse original described
by Mitchell, several differences appear, first the bridge-tree in
the Shetland mill was worked by a wooden wedge, here by an
iron screw. Second the Shetland damsel is a stone tied to a
string, which dragging upon the revolving surface of the upper
mill stone shakes the "shoe" or feeder, while in this case the
damsel is a vertical wooden staff projecting from the top of the
spindle so as to agitate the shoe with its corrugations as it re-
volves. Third, the Shetland hopper is swung from the roof by
four ropes, here it rests on the usual hopper "bench" or stand.
Fourth, our mill-stones are boxed in with the usual "hoop" and
"guard." The Shetland stones run free. Fifth, the wooden
paddles of the Shetland water wheel are set, not spirally or
obliquely, but vertically against the shaft and are not enclosed in
the circumference of the wheel. Our paddles are made of
wrought iron enclosed within the wheels' circumference and set
with a spiral twist against an extension of the shaft, a variation
78 NOTES ON THE NORSE MILL
from the simple Norse form, which is briefly referred to by
Knight under the article "Horizontal Water Wheel," and which
again appears in an illustration found for me by Dr. B. F.
Fackenthal, Jr., and also published in Knight, from Harpers
Magazine for May 1856, page 723, as illustrating a horizontal
water-wheel turning a Chilean Mill to grind silver ore at the
Mina Grande mine near Tegucigalpa, Honduras, about 1855.
But these differences are not fundamental, and the unmistakable
point of similarity is the fact that the mill-stones in the Shet-
land and American instances are set on the vertical shaft of the
water-wheel itself and turn directly with it. It is a machine
therefore of the simplest character with no belting, no cog wheels
and no counter gearing to get out of order.
Although Mitchell did not trace the Shetland mill to Norway
in 1880, he asserts that the Scandinavians brought it to Scotland
and my friends, Henrik W von Z. Loss, of Philadelphia, and S.
Munch Kielland, of Buffalo, both natives of Norway, inform me
that this type of gristmill still exists there. I have also a draw-
ing of one of these mills in its native home, from a photograph
given me by Mrs. Hamilton Fish, Jr.. of New York, and taken
by her about 1908 in Norway, which shows the general construc-
tion of the building, the position of the water-wheel, bridge-tree
and penstock, but which is unfortunately too indistinct for exact
comparisons.
It remains to be learned why the natives of western North
Carolina call this mill the "Willis W^heel." We can suppose, but
without proof as yet, that Scotch emigrants, in the eighteenth
century brought it with them from Scotland, but as to the
origin and distribution of the apparatus we do not now
know whether it was invented in Norway or brought thither, or
whether it still survives in the mountains of Spain, Italy, Ger-
many or Eastern Europe or even whether it has been introduced
and still exists in other parts of the United States where an un-
dammed mountain stream w^ould turn mill stones.
The more we think of this mill as included in the field of re-
search illustrated by our collection the more we realize the great
number of important objects illustrating the early history of
man which have escaped the notice of travellers and even en-
cyclopedias. So much the more might we regret the superficial
NOTES ON THE NORSE MILL 79
nature of our own observations in past travels, when our atten-
tion has been concentrated upon transient or picturesque things.
We might wonder, not so much that Reese and Knight did not
describe this mill or that Miss Margaret W. Morley in her The
Carolina Mountains, (Houghton-Mifflin Co., New York, 1913)
should make no mention of it, as that John Muir should notice
it at all.
There can be little doubt that all the ancient water gristmills
of Bucks county were run by vertical overshot or undershot
water wheels until about 1820, after which time, according to
Reese Encyclopaedia (Article Water Wheel) experiments were
made in England upon Barker's Mill (a spouting turnstile) in-
vented in England in 1743, and upon the ancient Norse Mill or
Roulet Volant of France, where similar experiments resulted in
the invention of the turbine itself by Fourneyron in 1823.
Mr. Wilson Woodman informs us through Mr. Warren S. Ely
that three horizontal water wheels set with oblique paddles were
used in the gristmill and a saw mill at Wycombe, Bucks county,
in the 1850's. These water wheels were called "tub wheels" and
though the "tub wheel" illustrated in Knights Mechanical Dic-
tionary is of iron and shaped like an inverted cone with spiral
curvilinear paddles, these Bucks County wheels were made of
wood and like the Norse mill wheel in the museum, enclosed
their paddles, which were set obliquely, but not curved, in an
outer rim. As the wheels were about eight feet in diameter the
mill stones could not have been set directly upon their vertical
axes, as in the Norse mill, above described, where the water
wheel has only a dimeater of three feet. But there must have
been counter gearing to get the required velocity for the grind-
ing stone.
Roulet Volant or Norse Mill.
BY R. P. HOMMEL, OF LEHIGPI UNIVERSITY, BETHLEHEM, PA.
(Doylestown Meeting, January 19, 1918.)
MR. R. P. HOMMEL. of the Lehigh University, was pres-
ent at the reading of the two preceeding papers and hav-
ing since found valuable information concerning the
Norse Mill, in the University Library at Bethlehem, has kindly
communicated to me, H. C. Mercer, on February 7th, 1918, the
following notes and two very interesting illustrations.)
The distinguishing feature of the "Norse Mill" under discus-
sion is a horizontal wheel with a vertical axis on which are
Norse Mill as shown in Von den Machinen, by B. F.
Moennich, Augsburg, 1779, page 191, illustrating the
Roulet Volant or Norse Mill.
ROULET VOLANT OR NORSE MILL 81
mounted the mill stones thus doing away with any gear or inter-
mediate mechanism.
Though the origin of the mill remains in doubt it has been in
use for centuries in Europe. It is certain that this type of mill
was used in some provinces of France as Provence, Dauphiny
and Brittany, also in Sweden and in Turkey, though Moennich,
writing in 1779, on machines thinks it doubtful that this mill was
ever used in Germany.
In a book colled Theatrimi Machinarum Gcneralc, by Jacob
Leupold, Leipsig, 1724, page 206, the author speaking of hori-
zontal w^ater wheels says, (translated)
"They were used in places where little water exists with a high fall
namely in mountain regions as in parts of Sweden, Provence in France,
and such districts, where many springs and small brooks run down
from the mountains and in a closed pope strike obliquely against the
paddle and thus drive the latter around."
In another book Von Den Machinen, by B. F. Moennich, Augs-
burg, 1779, page 191, the author illustrating the mill with the
first cut here reproduced says, page 191 (translated) :
"Mills with horizontal water wheels in certain provinces of France,
Sweden and Turkey, are much used although we have no quite reliable
evidence as to whether they were ever in use in Germany. The grist-
mills which were thus driven were very simple as the illustration, here-
with given shows. No friction and little cost."
In a French work. Theatre dcs Instnimcns Matheinatiqucs ct
Mechaniques, by Jaques Besson of Dauphiny, Doctor of Mathe-
matics, Lyons 1578, under Figure 28 the author says (translated) :
"This mill is like the preceeding one, the mill stone being on the
same shaft as the water wheel, a fashion which may seem unknown to
some, but which is common in some places and especially at Toulouse
and also in some villages where I have seen them. However, (inser-
tion by the French editor) our author has improved it by placing the
wings of the wheel on a curve. The wheel is, in the figure (see second
illustration) horizontal and distant from the ground about 1 m.
7 p. the water coming from the east (right) although it may come
from where it can it making no difference from what direction it
comes. And I say this so that nobody should think that it was
necessary that the water should come from the east."
Another French writer, D'Arvieux. in Curious Nezcs of Travel,
Part 3, (Copenhagen and Leipsig, 1754) page 201 (translated)
says :
82
ROULET VOLANT OR NORSE MILL
"The Arabians have no windmills. These are used in oriental coun-
tries only where there are no rivers though in most places only hand
mills are in use. Water mills which I found on Mount Lebanon and
Mount Carmel are similar to the ones which are met with in Italy at
various places. They are very simple and cost little. The mill stone
and water wheel are fastened on the same axle. The water wheel if
Representation of a Norse Mill as used in the South of France in 1578,
from Theatre des Instrumens Mathematiques, etc., by Jaques Besson, Lyons,
1578, Fig-. 28, illustrating the Roulet Volant or Norse Mill.
ROULET VOLANT OR NORSE MILL 83
such it may be called, consists of eight hollow spoonshaped boards
which are fastened at an incline upon the axle. When the water
strikes these boards with vehemence the water wheel will turn and
with it the mill stone upon which the grain is heaped for grinding."
In the French work Application dc la Mechaniquc, by A Taffe,
Paris, 1843. page 200, the writer says (translated) :
"We call Turbines horizontal wheels with paddles either straight or
slightly curved like those which are used in Provence."
In another French book Architecture Hydraulique by M. Belh-
dor, (Paris, 1737), book 2, chapter 1, page 301, the writer says
(translated) :
"In Provence and in a large part of Dauphiny the grist mills are of
great simplicity having only a single horizontal wheel of six or seven
feet in diameter, etc." He also mentions a lever used to raise the
wheel and the mill stone.
Spons Dictionary of Engineering, Division 8. (London, 1874)
page 3105 says :
"The oldest forms of wheels having a vertical axis are found in the
south of France and in Algeria. The most simple of these, called
'Roulets Volants,' consist merely of an upright shaft on which is fixed
the wheel having plain curved floats, driven by the impact of a column
of water discharged on the upper surface from a wooden trough or
spout. The maximum effect obtained from these wheels, under the
most favorable circumstances, is 9.35, 0.35 of the absolute work due to
the fall."
It was from an examination of this wheel that Foiirneyron was
led to make those experiments which resulted in the invention
of the modern turbine the first being erected by him in Franche-
Comte in the year 1827.
The Scotch-Irish may have introduced this mill into North
Carolina if it is true that it found its way into Scotland from
Norway. It seems more likely however that French Huguenots
who emigrated to North Carolina in the eighteenth century-
brought with them this- mill which in their former home was called
Roulet Volant (flying wheel). In the course of time the word
Volant may have been corrupted into willow by which name
Willow Wheel this mill is known at the present time in North
Carolina.
Biographical Notice of Joseph B. Walter, M.D.
BY B. F. FACKENTHAL, JR., SC.D., RIEGELSVILLE, PA.
(Doylestown Meeting, January 18, 1918.)
DR. JOSEPH B. WALTER was one of the twelve gentle-
men who founded this society 38 years ago. He con-
tinued to be one of its most faithful and loyal members
down to the time of his passing away on August 18, 1917. He
was one of the original directors under the charter of 1885, and
at the time of his death was
serving as one of its vice-
presidents.
The first paper presented
before this society was read
by Mr. Josiah B. Smith,
July 29, 1880. That paper
was, therefore, the first one
published in Volume I, of
our proceedings, and the
portrait of Mr. Smith can
be seen on page 1 of that
volume, with the statement
that he not only read the
first paper, but was the first
to sign the constitution of
the society. When this
volume appeared. Dr. Wal-
ter took exception to that
statement, claiming that he
was himself the first to
sign the constitution. We then investigated the matter and found
that both statements were correct. Mr. Smith's name appears
first when the society was organized in 1880, and Dr. Walter's
name appears first in the application, in 1885, when the society
was chartered. I said to him then, that if in the ordering of
Providence, I was permitted to do so, that I would see that this
statement was made and that his portrait would also appear in
DR. JOSEPH B. WALTE:R
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF JOSEPH B. WALTER, M.D. 85
our proceedings. It is therefore a great privilege that I am per-
mitted to carry out this promise to our departed friend.
Dr. Walter was born in Plumstead township, Bucks county.
Pa., August 30, 1840, and was therefore 77 years of age at the
time of his death. His paternal grandfather, Michael Walter,
whose ancestors were residents of Alsace, Germany, was one of
the early settlers of Plumstead township, where he followed the
occupation of farming. He served for a number of years as
justice of the peace. John Walter, son of Michael, was born in
Plumstead township and in early life learned the carpenter's
trade. He married Mary, the daughter of Samuel Beek, a resi-
dent farmer of Plumstead township, and had five children, Cath-
arine, Joseph B. (the subject of this notice), Levi, Silas and
Emma B.
Joseph B. resided with his parents in Plumstead township until
the death of his mother, when at the age of about 8 or 9 years he
was taken into the family of his maternal uncle. William Beek,
who resided in Doylestown. He was there educated in the pub-
lic school and private schools, later he became a student at
Kishacoquillas Seminary in Mifflin county, Pa., and in the board-
ing school of Rev. M. S. Hofiford at Beverly, New Jersey.
In 1859, at the age of 19 years, he entered upon the profession
of teaching school, devoting his leisure hours to the study of
medicine under the direction of Dr. Isaac S. Moyer. His maiden
effort as a teacher was in Durham township, where he taught
for one scholastic year beginning in the fall of 1859, the term
was for eight months, for which he was paid $25 per month, out
of this he had to pay his board and other expenses. The amount
of money he could have saved out of this small salary could not
have gone very far toward his medical education, and yet it is to
be noted that many of our professional men resorted to teaching
to get funds to aid them in their studies. All honor to them for
their well directed energies. Later Dr. Walter taught school in
Warrington, Northampton and Southampton townships.
In August 1862 he put aside his professional studies and en-
listed for a term of nine months as a private in Company E,
122nd. Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, and was mustered out
of service in May 1863. He then taught school for a few months
at Richboro, Northampton township, and then re-enlisted in the
86 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF JOSEPH B. WALTER, M.D.
152nd. Pennsylvania Infantry. During this enlistment he was sta-
tioned, the greater part of the time, at headquarters in Virginia
and North Carolina. He was promoted to the rank of sergeant.
Besides many minor engagements he participated in the battles
of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Appomatox. He was
mustered out of service at the close of the war.
Immediately following his return to civil life he entered the
office of Dr. Isaac S. Moyer, then of Plumsteadville, later of
Quakertown, and resumed the study of medicine. In 1866 he
entered the medical department of the University of Pennsyl-
vania, from which he was graduated as a medical doctor in the
spring of 1868. He at once associated himself with Dr. J. E.
Smith, of Yardley, and began the practice of medicine. In the
spring of 1870 he located in Solebury township, where he con-
tinued to practice his profession until 1915, when owing to fail-
ing health he retired.
Dr. Walter was an active member of the Bucks County Medi-
cal Society. In a paper read before the Bucks County Historical
Society (Volume I, page 509) he records that on one occasion
he attended a meeting of the medical society at Newtown when
but two members were present, of whom he was one. He was
also a member of the Lehigh Valley Medical Association and the
Pennsylvania State Medical Society. He was a close student and
kept in touch with the advanced thought and researches of his
profession. He was also a member of Doylestown Lodge, No.
245, F. & A. M., having been entered over fifty years ago, and
of Doylestown Chapter, No. 270, R. A. C. He was also a mem-
ber of the Commandery of Knights Templar.
Dr. Walter contributed a number of papers to this society,
which may be found in our printed volumes. He was a poet of
some ability and contributed many poems to the columns of our
local papers. One of his poems "What Goeffrey Chaucer Saw,"
is published in Volume I, page 401, of our proceedings. At the
anniversary of the Bucks County Medical Society he wrote the
anniversary poem entitled "The Doctor." He was also consider-
able of a Shakespearian student.^
On October 13, 1870, Dr. Walter was married to Miss Mary
6 In 1924, Mrs. Walter has published 74 of his poems in a neat and attrac-
tive volume of 204 pages.
MAKING A DUGOUT BOAT IN MISSISSIPPI 87
T. Child, daughter of George M. and Sarah (Wood) Child, of
Plumstead, who survives him.
In politics, Dr. Walter was a Republican, and took great in-
terest in the political affairs of the township and county. He was
a congenial companion, a close friend to those who knew him
best, an affable, generous and warm-hearted man.
Personally I knew him best as a member of this society, and
I soon learned to know that he could always be depended upon,
for he had the best interests of the society at heart. This was
shown in many ways, and not least by the fact that his library,
three hundred and eighty volumes with three book-cases, and a
number of other articles were presented to the society by his
widow at his behest.
Making a Dugout Boat in Mississippi.
BY FRANK K. SWAIN, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Doylestown Meeting, January 19, 1918.)
MESSRS. R. L. LEARNED & SON, operating a band-
sawmill and dealing in sawed lumber, shingles and lath
at Natchez, Miss., use, at the present time, a number of
dugout canoes, perhaps fifty or more of them. They are tied up
along the Mississippi river about ninety miles above Natchez.
Three old ones were lying in the lumberyard at the Natchez mill
when visited by me in January 1917, waiting to be repaired to
send up the river again. The fourth one was bought by me for
the Bucks County Historical Society.
They are operated by a man standing upright, who with one
paddle pushes the canoe into the marshes or forest passing in and
out among the trees where it would be impossible to go with a
wider boat. They are treacherous to manage and turn over
easily, but most of the negroes and some of the white men can
ride them standing up. The negroes can stand up in them and
trim a tree or cut it down without the canoe taking water. They
are specially fine to shoot about in during a flood or high water
when the water is up to the tree tops, the thin canoe slipping
through the branches with the man lying down. When the tree
is cut and the log ready to float to the raft the man "rides" the
88 MAKING A DUGOUT BOAT IN MISSISSIPPI
log with the canoe trailing behind, empty. On reaching the
raft, at the river's edge, the man again returns in the canoe for
another log and the operation is repeated. Canoes were also used
by the manager or inspector for going about among the trees to
inspect, select and mark the trees to be cut down and to instruct
the workmen.
Learned's mill dates back to 1828 and is therefore ninety years
old. Fifty years ago the mill started to use canoes and the one
bought for our museum was one of the first made and used
there and the workmen said that it must be forty or fifty years
old. At an earlier time boats may not have been necessary as
there was doubtless ample timber close to the mill on the high
hills around Natchez and above along the river, which are now
bare of timber and under cultivation. Boats made of slabs are
now being built by the Learned Company to replace these canoes
as they wear out. These are wider, more bowed, not so long
and are provided with one or two seats. The best canoes were
made of gum trees because that wood does not split or crack
and the wood is very hard. Canoes are also made of cypress as
that wood does not rot easily. The canoe bought for our museum
is made of poplar. These canoes being long and narrow with
rather round bottoms turn over easily, so easily, the carpenter
said, that a man standing up with an extra large chew of to-
bacco in one cheek was likely to overbalance and tumble into the
water. He called his canoe "Night Hawk." I do not know
whether that was its name or whether any of them were named
or not.
Mr. Henry, a superintendent at the mill had made two or three
canoes, he now owns a small one, quite new, painted a bright
green with strips nailed on the sides so as to raise it as he is a
large stout man. In the middle of his boat there is a board run-
ning from side to side with a scooped out seat nailed to the
board. This is shaped like the seat of a Windsor chair or the
iron seat of a modern mowing machine. These canoes were all
adzed out. A colored "squatter" or wood-gatherer just below
the mill told me that he had made several canoes with a round
or curved bladed adze but had never burned or charred any, nor
had he ever seen any made in that way neither had he seen
MAKING A DUGOUT BOAT IN MISSISSIPPI 89
hominy mortars, bowls or any wooden ware made by charring,
but he knew that the Indians charred their boats.
A colored man, splitting shingles with a "frow" and using the
shaving horse and draw knife to taper the ends, working in a lit-
tle hut on the River road a mile above Vicksburg, told me he
had often made hominy mortars, wooden bowls and canoes from
cypress and other logs using a round bladed adze but had never
charred any nor had he seen any charred. He was born a slave
in 1856 on the plantation which afterwards become the National
Cemetery. He owns a dugout at the present time which he made
himself but he had loaned it to a friend who had gone duck
shooting several miles up the Mississippi river.
He said that canoes were seldom used now, as row-boats made
of slabs could be bought for very little money, and would carry
two or three persons. There are many row-boats in use along the
Mississippi river as far as Vicksburg but no canoes. Throughout
the South, I learned that many persons had seen canoes, or had
used them, but all dated back thirty or forty years, most of the
young people had heard of them but had never seen them.
A good canoe made from a perfect log with no knots, and
adzed smooth should last fiftv or more vears.
DUGOUT CANOE FROM NATCHEZ, MISS.
In Museum of Bucks County Historical Society. Length, 15 feet 10 inclies.
Another similar dugout canoe, also in the Museum, was found in the
marshes along the Neuse river, near Newbern. N. C, by William A. Labs.
Manners and Customs of Eighty Years Ago.
BY MARY S. woodman/ WYCOMBE, PA.
(Doylestown Meeting, Jan. 19, 1918.)
THE following paper was prepared from notes which were
in substance the answers given by Miss Woodman to my
questions concerning various objects pointed out to her in
the collection in our museum, when in company with her brother
Wilson H. Woodman, his wife and her relative, Miss Valerie
Old, of Montclair, New Jersey. Miss Woodman visited the
museum on the afternoon of June 1st, 1917. We passed slowly
along the galleries, stopping before the alcoves to rest upon
chairs carried with us. Mr. Frank K. Swain took down a sum-
mary of her answers in pencil. The paper thus prepared in
typewritten manuscript, was presented and read by Miss Wood-
man's sister-in-law, Mrs. (Louisa H.) Wilson H. Woodman.
H. C. MERCER.
January 24, 1918.
Sea Sickness Cured. — A glass canteen-shaped bottle filled
with bitters to cure sea sickness in crossing the ocean was
brought to this country by Evan Ap Evan's family. He came
here in 1686 and the canteen was probably used by him on the
voyage. He was Miss Woodman's ancestor.
Merino Sheep. — Miss Woodman's father bought a half-breed
merino lamb from a man living on Long Island who had im-
ported full-blood merinos. The wool was so fine that the finest
machinery would not work it. They put a bell on the lamb and
it never got cross. Benjamin Smith, her grandfather, then raised
merinos and later populated the neighborhood with them. A
neighbor stole a merino lamb from their cellar, replacing it with
a native lamb. The theft was discovered later when the man's
children boasted in school that they too had a merino lamb. But
1 Miss Woodman is the daugliter of Henry and Mary Smith Woodman,
and was born in Buckingham township March 29, 1833. Her father was for
many years a minister among Friends and Hved where she still lives, with
her brother W^ilson Woodman and his wife, near Wycombe in Buckingham
township, on a farm lying along the Wrightstown township line. The hut
of Indian Billy, the last Delaware Indian in Bucks county, formerly stood
near the Woodman house. — W. S. E.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF EIGHTY YEARS AGO 91
Benjamin Smith never said a word and did not get the lamb
again. Miss Woodman had a merino blanket at this time made
from the wool of the first merino.
Rose Water. — Her great-grandmother had a little still and
used to distill rose water from rose petals which she gathered
early in the morning. She placed them on plates in water, added
more from time to time and placed them in the sun each day.
Later the water was heated, strained, distilled and bottled and
guests were given a dram of rose water instead of whiskey.
Reaping. — Sickles were not used in her time but her father
had an old one in the shed-loft which he would get down once in
awhile to show the children how it had been used in his child-
hood and an Irish woman working for her mother reaped wheat
with it as late as 1844. She never saw a clover header but her
father raised broom-corn and an old man used to come to the
house to make brooms after the seeds had been combed off the
broom-corn.
Sassafras in Soap. — She never saw a winnowing basket but
had sifted wood ashes many a time through a wooden sieve for
making lye for soap. The charcoal was saved for other pur-
poses. Sassafras sticks were placed in the bottom of the ash
hopper, with a little lime, so that the perfume of the sassafras
got into the soap. The mucilage in the sassafras helped to "set
up" or harden the soap. Mr. Woodman said the sassafras was
simply "pow-wow" but Miss Woodman said the sassafras was
not all "pow-wow" either. The neighbors called it "sassafrac"
but her father insisted on the family calling it sassafras. Her
father did not allow his sons (her brothers) to whistle in the
house nor stand with their hands in their pockets. Bleeding by
doctors was not good. She remembered the cause of General
Washington's death and hated bleeding.
Hatter at Penn's Park. — Charles Reeder, an old hatter at
Penn's Park, who helped build the Almshouse, made a new fur
hat for her father in 1840. Her two little brothers had small
round "stove pipe" hats made of black fur. In Quaker meeting
her father took off his hat, stood up and spoke for a minute or
two all the time looking into his hat. As he sat down little Ned,
her brother thought a moment and then took off his "stove pipe"
hat, looked into it as he stood up and said in a loud voice "my
hat has got an eagle in it."
92 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF EIGHTY YEARS AGO
Dunce Caps. — In 1835 the first school director (her father)
was elected in Buckingham. He abolished dunce caps because he
thought it foolish and unnecessary. Mr. Woodman had worn
one for talking too much at "Rough and Ready School," the
Cider Press school near Wycombe.
Grammar. — The teacher of Concord school, Amos Doan, said
"There wasn't no use in no grammar."
Pumps. — Chalkley Twining, of Mozart, who succeeded James
Conard, made the last bored-out wooden pumps.
Shoes. — Thomas Foster, of Cedar Lane, (a road leading from
Penn's Park to Rushland), used to come to the house to make
shoes for the whole family as late as 1843. The comet made its
appearance at this time, 1843. It was called "Miller's Fire."
Foster was at the Woodman place at the time. He brought
Charlie Matty, a journeyman, with him, also his own son and
some times another boy as apprentices. Shoemakers carried dif-
ferent sized lasts but the Woodman family had their own and
her brothers kept theirs in the shed-loft. They had a shoemak-
er's bench made and kept there for the shoemaker. Some people
had rights and left made but her father would not. He reversed
his shoes every morning so they would not set or shape to the
feet. In 1848 and 1849, the harnessmaker, the tailor, and the
shoemaker came to the house at the same time to make harness,
coats and shoes. At that time her father and mother, with the
other children, went sleighing to visit friends in Chester county.
Miss Woodman, then ten years old, remained at home with her
grandmother. Old Tommy, the shoemaker, staying there at the
time, kept house. The world was supposed to burn up with
"Miller's Fire" and that evening on going to the barn she saw
the whole western sky a flame of fire and badly frightened she
ran into the house to tell her grandmother who only laughed, as
it was nothing but a beautiful winter sunset and not the comet.
Tombstones at Penn's Park. — Amos Doan, a teacher at Con-
cord school, pulled up the tombstones in the old graveyard at
Penn's Park together with the wall surrounding it and had them
hauled away. He made up a frolic to get men to help haul the
stones and to wall up a bank along the road at the present Jacob
Livezey's house. Previous to this he had pulled up the stones
and thrown them in a heap and Edward Atkinson, a boy, saw
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF EIGHTY YEARS AGO 93
men unloading stones at the bank and others driving away from
the graveyard and knew the stones came from the old graveyard
wall. Later when the graveyard was plowed over and
cultivated Doan's wife and daughter, would never eat bread,
made from grain grown in this -field. Bob Houpt who came to
Penn's Park from Chester county, said he built a stone marked
"Zebulon Heston" into the wall of the old Gaine housed The
Heston stone was supposed to come from the Penn's Park grave-
yard but many doubted this story with many others told by Houpt
because he loved to brag and cause a sensation. John Chap-
man's house was at the spring, the present Ruckman farm.
William Linton's School. — William Linton kept a Latin
school called Wrightstown Boarding School in 1772. One win-
ter he had six boarders, and several other pupils came on horse-
back. The building was made of logs with clapboards and had
three dormer windows of four lights each in the garret room
where the boy boarders slept in four beds. Miss Woodman's
father was a pupil there, also William Shriner, afterwards a
Quaker preacher. There was no glass in the dormer windows
and beds were often covered wath snow, nevertheless the rule
was that the door should be kept open for ventilation and the
boys took turns sleeping in the draft at the door.
End of Open Fire Cooking. — At Miss Woodman's home egg
custards were baked in a bake oven. The crusts were first put in
on the wooden shovel and then the custard was poured in with a
large long handled dipper. Tenplate stoves were sometimes used
for cooking but she preferred cooking in the open fire which was
last used for cooking in her house in 1848. The fire place was
then boarded in and they bought their first cook stove, although
a tenplate stove had been used at odd times at least two years
earlier, 1846 to 1848. She never saw^ a hand corn mill.
Slaves. — Her parents were Abolitionists. In her younger days
the negroes were natives, having been here a long time. They
ate at the same table with white people and were considered one
of the family as long as they behaved themselves. She often
tended the colored washwoman's baby when she came to the
1 The old Gaine house stood on the west side of the turnpike in Penn's
Park at its intersection with the road to Rushland. Cyrus Gaines house
and store were directly opposite across the Rushland road and the latter
Charles Gaine's house is some distance down the turnpike toward the
Neshaminy. — W. S. E.
94 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF EIGHTY YEARS AGO
house to do the washing. Old Corn, a colored man, a member
of Wrightstown Meeting, was the son of a colored slave be-
longing to the Hickst family and was born on the ship when the
Hickst family came over from Cornwall, England, and was
named Cornwall. The Hikst family- owned slaves and were not
Quakers. This family also owned Indian Billy's graveyard. Dur-
ing the time of the "underground railroad" a southern negro
came to the house of a neighbor also an Abolitionist. The man
and his wife were both ill and there was no one else to lead him
through the dark forest to the next "station" except their daugh-
ter, sixteen years old who, without fear, went with him for sev-
eral miles in the dark night on foot and in the rain, choosing
paths farthest from houses to avoid detection. The man reached
Canada and later sent word back to the family of his safe arrival.
Making Green Ointment. — (This note by Miss Woodman
was not taken on June, 1917, but added later, and read by Mrs.
Wilson H. Woodman, at the meeting.) The ointment was used
for aches and pains, earache, swelled faces, swelled neck-glands,
rheumatism, burns, sore udder of the cow, etc. The following
herbs were gathered the day before the ointment party : 1 Solo-
mon's Seal and Jacob's Ladder ; 2. Vervain (then and there pro-
nounced Vervine), the leaves of which were also used for boils;
3. Daisy, a small and scarce species growing only on "Pine Hill,"
a hill on the Woodman Farm planted by one of Mr. Woodman's
ancestors, with one of the smaller species of pine, not white
pine ; 4. Cureall or Healall ; 5, Comf rey, the root of which only
was used, grown in the garden ; 6, Spikenard. All these herbs
(then and there pronounced "yarbs") except 1, 3, 4 were grown in
the garden. On the morning following the gathering, a party of
ointment (pronounced Eintment") makers, all bringing contri-
butions of butter, came to the house and the freshly gathered
herbs, of yesterday were very finely chopped, generally by the
women. About half-a-bushel of these herbs were put in a large
iron pot, together with all the butter brought to the meeting, and
cooked for a long time, continuously, until all the juice of the
herbs was boiled out. Bowls were then brought and filled with
2 This family who spelled the name "Hickst" should not be confounded
with the old Quaker family of Hicks. Charles Hicks from Cornwall, Kn-?-
land, married one of the Kemble girls and through her inherited part of the
large Kemble tract in the southwest corner of Buckingham near the Wood-
man farm. — W. S. E.
CUPPING AND BLEEDING 95
quantities of the ointment and distributed to the persons present,
according to the quantity of butter brought by each.
Cupping and Bleeding.
BY GEORGE M. GRIM, M.D., OTTSVILLE, PA.
(Doylestown Meeting, Jan. 19, 1918.)
THE progress in the therapeutic art, as opposed to the meth-
ods pursued by pioneer doctors ; the advancement in surgery,
compared with the barber surgeon ; modern medicine as com-
pared with the crude methods of our forefathers, is a subject
which would in itself make an interesting paper ; but today we
wish to consider only two of the means of healing, practiced in
recent years, which, too, apparently will soon pass to the medical
junk pile.
Bleeding, up to the past fifteen or twenty years was a "sheet
anchor" as it was termed, in a great many diseases. The doctor's
lance occupied as important position as his thermometer today ;
and it was used in a great variety of diseases. A doctor upon
his daily rounds then, would have missed a lance more than a
thermometer today, having use for it probably a half dozen times
during his rounds. They were the days of bleeding and the lance
was used freely in fevers, pneumonia, apoplexy, all congestive
diseases, fits of all kinds, vertigo, sunstroke, and in fact, at one
time it was a matter of routine practice in almost all diseases.
Later, the physician began to select his cases, using it only when
particularly indicated, as in plethoric conditions, pneumonia, ap-
oplexy, etc. In the indiscriminate use of the lance there were, no
doubt, -patients bled that should not have been, but as a thera-
peutic measure, it then occupied, and still occupies, an important
position in treating certain selected cases ; and if patients formerly
died from the lances use, some die now because it is not used.
Personally, I have never seen any of the failures from blood
letting, but have witnessed some remarkable reliefs. As a boy,
I held the basin for my father in the office many time, and heard
the remark after the operation, "Doctor, I feel fine — quite like a
96 CUPPING AND BLEEDING
different person" and their actions and appearances would indi-
cate the same result. There, too, was a class of elderly persons
who would come for their bleeding three or four times a year,
suffering from dizziness, vertigo, short breath on exertion, gen-
eral fullness and oppression in the head, symptoms of what would
now be termed high pressure.
My father, who practiced towards the end of the bleeding age,
and when it was considered malpractice to bleed in fevers, often
remarked that he never witnessed anything so remarkable as the
relief he himself received when bled by the old family doctor in
scarlet fever. There can be no doubt, in my mind that a toxic
blood removed from the veins must be for the good of the patient.
My first personal experience in bleeding was in epilepsy. Two,
big, fat, plethoric girls in their teens. My father started me on
these as my cases to experiment upon, on my return from medical
college, as every young doctor needs some real material to render
his book training more actual. He, himself, had started the treat-
ment after they had continued getting their fits three or four
times a week in spite of the use of bromides and other sedatives.
He knew that bleeding would help them from his first experi-
ment, when the lance accidentally striking the artery had ex-
tracted such a quantity of the toxic fluid that no fits returned for
one year. This seemed to prove to him that bleeding at selected
intervals would be beneficial and he put me "on the job." My
experience could only confirm the accuracy of his diagnosis, or
conclusion as to beneficial results of bleeding. There is no doubt,
that bleeding in certain cases is very useful, and is today often
a neglected remedy. The pendulum has swung to the opposite
extreme. Modern medical teachers must be somewhat at fault,
as the modern physician often knows little of the science or its
technique.
Blood letting is generally considered under general or local con-
ditions. Medical blood letting is performed by means of either
the spring lance, thumb lance, or bitoury (a slender surgical
knife). One of the most superficial veins of the arm, or dorsum
of foot, generally the large superficial vein at the elbow, is usually
selected; the patient sitting on a chair (unless ill in bed) places
his arm, easily, upon the back of another chair, a bandage is ap-
plied about four inches above the elbow sufficiently tight to con-
CUPPING AND BLEEDING 97
strict the vein but not the artery. The vein then becomes very
prominent; the lance is placed directly over this (generally diag-
onally) and sprung. The blood will flow freely into a basin held
by an assistant. The quantity allowed to flow depends upon the
condition of the patient, but generally a half basin full, or the drain
is continued until the patient begins to feel a little light headed
or symptoms of approaching syncope appear. A compress is
now placed over the aperture and a bandage applied which im-
mediately stops the flow of blood. The arm should be carried in
a sling or kept inactive for twelve to twenty-hour hours.
Local blood letting is performed by cupping, by leeches or by
incisions with a small sharp scalpel.
Cupping is performed upon almost any part of the body not too
bony. A vacuum is produced by a small piece of paper, or a wad
of cotton saturated with alcohol, lighted and thrown into the cup
or lighted within it and the cup quickly attached to the spot se-
lected. The flame immediately goes out when the cup is placed
on the skin and the vacuum produced sucks the flesh into the cup.
This suction for five or ten minutes produces a considerable flow
of blood to that point and the part within the cup swells up into
a large blood swelling. The operation may stop here and this is
what is known as "dry cupping," and has the general effect upon
the system of mustard or any application that draws the blood
from the general circulation to a local portion of body. In "wet
cupping" the scarifyer is placed upon these swellings of dilated
blood vessels and when snapped the dozen or sixteen little knives
pierce these superficial vessels and bleeding ensues ; the cup is
re-applied in the same manner as above and under the efifects of
its suction the blood flows freely and the cup fills up. It may
be washed oflf and re-applied if more blood is desired. Usually
from one-half to an ounce of blood is removed by each cup. It is,
at times, a valuable local procedure and is used in pneumonia,
pleurisy, rheumatism and a variety of complaints. A few years
ago we had the "cupper," a man, or more often a woman who
followed it as a business and responded to the calls of those de-
siring the treatment. Instead of the alcohol flame, the vacuum is
produced in some cups by a syringe attached to a stopcock at its
top or by a rubber bulb attached to the top of cup.
My last case of cupping was but a few months back in a case
98 CUPPING AND BLEEDING
of high pressure with fullness in head and falling feeling. I
cupped the back of the neck and over the shoulder and removed
about one-half to two-thirds of a pint of blood. It produced con-
siderable benefit.
LEECHING.
The leech or blood sucker, as popularly known, is a little ani-
mal cupper. They make a nice little puncture, apply their cup,
and suck till full and then fall off. More considerate than that
more intelligent leech who wont fall off when full, or stop his
blood sucking practices.
The little animal is still sought for, and its use is a favorite
measure for the local abstraction of blood by many doctors and
their patients.
Leeches may be applied to any part of the body. They have
been very popular in inflammation not particularly applicable to
cupping, for instance conjunctiviation, or inflammation around
the eye and nose. The operation sometimes, however, leaves a
little scar, and this might not be desired in a beautiful face.
This, is, however, not likely if the leech is left on until it falls off.
I am told a great many modern drug stores in the city have
leeches in stock, an indication that their use is being utilized, and
may mean that they are being prescribed by certain present-day
physicians. They are generally easily applied, but if they do not
readily take hold a little smear of blood will immediately attach
them. They will relieve a local congestion ' very readily of its
over-supply of blood.
The American leech in northern latitudes is taken from creeks,
etc., in summer. A great many doctors preferred the French,
Swiss, or German leeches. They were more active and took a
hold better. The American leech often has to be coaxed to be-
gin operations by applying warm milk or blood.
Leeches are at present supplied to the trade by many drug
firms, and are used pretty extensively today.
NOTE ON CUPPING AND BLEEDING BY DR. MERCER
The accompanying illustration shows H and AAA nine
cupping vessels of glass to be used with the fire method, from
Dr. Walter, of Solebury, Bucks county, about 1870. the diameter
Cupping Vessels and Instruments illustrating note on the paper
by Dr. George M. Grim.
A & H — Glass Cupping Vessels.
B & C — Scarifier and Case.
D — Gla.'^s Cupping Vessels
wiih perforated tops
and brass rim.
E & F — Thumb Lancet and Case.
G — Scarifier and Case.
N — Bottle of Spirits
I — Glass Cupping Vessel, per-
forated top.
J — Tin Cupping Vessels.
L, — Wooden Cupping Vessels
with rubber bulbs.
M — Hard Rubber Cupping Ves-
sels,
for igniting cotton.
CUPPING AND BLEEDING 99
of the largest glass is two inches. J. six cupping vessels of tin
(fire method) Pottsville, Penna., about 1800. L, three wooden
cups with rubber bulbs for suction without fire, Lancaster, Penna.,
about 1850. M, two hard rubber cups (fire method) Lancaster,
Penna., about I85O. D D, in the box, two glass cupping vessels
with perforated tops cemented upon brass rims (bees wax show-
ing on the rims) for attachment to a syringe in the suction pro-
cess without tire. The syringe was probably mounted with a stop
valve but no old cupping syringes have as yet been found for the
museum. They are described as used with brass attachments and
valves before the discovery of india-rubber in the 1751 edition
of Chambers' Encyclopaedia. The syringe itself is very ancient
and described by Hero of Alexandria about 150 B. C. I, a glass
cupping vessel used by Mrs. Jane Mundy near Rush Valley,
Bucks county, about 1800. Artificially perforated on the top.
Method of air exhaustion unknown. Knight's mechanical dic-
tionary says that the Chinese, Hindoos and Malays, about 1877,
in thus drawing blood sucked with the mouth through a tube
applied to a copper cup and that the ancient Egyptians sucked
directly wath the mouth upon perforated cups of cow's horns,
closed with a leather valve. The explorer of Thibet, Father Hue,
saw, in 1844, the Thibetans proceeding in the same way and
closing the hole with pellets of chewed paper. But no tradition
of sucking with the mouth in this process has yet been heard of
in Bucks county, and no cow horn cups have been found. B B,
in the box, two scarifiers, brass instruments releasing by a trig-
ger numerous small knives for scarifying the congested part after
the first application of the cup. This instrument must have been
invented about 1715 or before 1750 since Chambers Encyclopedia
of 1751, possibly quoting the 1721 editions, says that before his
publication small cutting wheels, and we infer scarifying knives,
were used. No illustration or mention of the scarifier or valve
syringe appears among the described surgical instruments in
the English translation of La Vagnions Complete Surgery of
1699 or in William Salmon's Ars Chirurgica published in Lon-
don in 1698. B, in box at right, leather case for scarifier. Dr.
Walter, Solebury, about 1870. B and C, in box left, brass
scarifier, inscribed "G. R. Wa Wun" and case, Dr. Muehlenberg.
Lancaster, about 1850. Box exclusive of articles AAA and
100 CUPPING AND BLEEDING
upper BBC, shows the cupping case of Dr. J. B. Walter, of
Solebury, about 1870. The width of the box is nine inches. N,
his bottle with spirits for igniting cotton for cupping. G, scarify-
ing knife of unknown ownership. E, thumb lancet for bleeding,
not cupping. It lies in its leather case and was used by Rudolph
Bensel of New Galena, Bucks county, about 1850. F, thumb
lancet case of leather stamped with Traue Nicht Es Stecht,
translated "Look out it pricks."
Mr. Leidy Sheip, of Decatur street, Doylestown, informs us
through Mr. Mann that he practiced cupping with tin cups as did
his sister, Mrs. Amos Baringer and his mother. His last opera-
tion about thirty years ago being upon his brother for a local
inflammation. He heated the cup with lighted paper and used
a scarifier. The father of Mrs. Amos Baringer, Jr., Oliver
Hetrick of New Britain, also cupped with tin cups and lighted
paper. Mr. Sheip had seen glass cups but none of other material
and had never heard of producing the suction directly by the lips.
The cupping process is very ancient. It is described by Hippo-
crates, 413 B. C. and Hero of Alexandria about 150 B. C., speaks
of cupping with or without fire. The fire method is well illus-
trated as follows. Fill a saucer with water and a glass tumbler
with crumpled paper. Light the latter and set the tumbler up-
sidedown in the saucer. The fire goes out and the water rises
in the glass.
On information just received July 24th from Dr. George H.
Packard, White Rock, Madison county. North Carolina, we
learn that the process of cupping and bleeding is not now known
amongst the mountain people of Madison county, western
North Carolina.
George Taylor, Signer of the Declaration of Independence.
BY WARREN S. ELY, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Doylestown Meeting, January 19, 1918.)
GEORGE TAYLOR was born in the year 1716. The facts
in reference to the first twenty years of his life rest al-
most wholly on family tradition. According to the most
reliable information obtainable, the place of his nativity was
somewhere in Ireland, where his father was a well-to-do-barrister.^
He received a good English education and was desired by his
father to prepare himself for the medical profession. To this
he was very averse and for that or some other reason ran away
from home and took passage on a sailing vessel bound for
Philadelphia, at which port he landed sometime in the year 1736.
The several biographies of George Taylor, including the one
in Volume I, of our publications, pp. 326-332, prepared by the
late Charles Laubach, have stated that he came to this country as
a redemptioner and that soon after his arrival he was employed
at the Durham Iron Works as a furnace filler. Having recently
discovered that this and other statements concerning him con-
tained in the several biographies were incorrect, I will endeavor
to clear up the early history of this Bucks county signer of the
Declaration of Independence, and also give some newly discov-
ered facts in reference to his later life.
There is no evidence that he came as a redemptioner, (that his
services for a term of years were sold on his arrival for the pay-
ment of his passage), nor that he served for a number of years
or at any time, as a common laborer. A relative of the family,
who died in 1862 at an advanced age, is authority for the state-
ment that there was no such tradition in the family of Col. Taylor.
This lady born in Easton during the lifetime of Col. Taylor and
was during her long life intimately associated with the family,
and therefore her statement is worthy of consideration.
Soon after his arrival in Pennsylvania, George Taylor found
employment with Samuel Savage, Jr., at Warwick furnace, in
East Nantmeal township, Chester county. What the nature of
1 Later information leads to the belief that he was born in England. See
Dr. Fackenthal's paper, page 114 hereof.
102 GEO. TAYLOR, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
his initial employment at the furnace was cannot be determined,
but the fact that he was book-keeper "in 1739 and qualified to
take charge of the blast furnace and of Coventry forge as man-
ager several years later and retain that position for ten years or
more is evidence that his position was a responsible one.
Samuel Savage, Jr., was a son of Samuel Savage, Sr., who was
associated with his father-in-law Thomas- Rutter in the establish-
ment of the iron works at Manatawny, Berks county, in or about
the year 1718, and died there in 1720, leaving to survive him
his widow Ann, nee Rutter, and six children, Samuel, Rebecca.
Thomas, Joseph, Ruth and John.
Ann (Rutter) Savage, the widow married about 1721, Samuel
Nutt, of Coventry, Chester county, who with William Branson
had established the Christine furnace and Coventry forge on
French creek about 1720. His nephew and heir, Samuel Nutt,
Jr., married Rebecca Savage, daughter of Mrs. Nutt by her
former marriage. Samuel Nutt by his will dated September 25,
1737, devised to his wife Ann "the halfe, my shear, of a hun-
dred acres whereon the forge standeth and the halfe of the land
or tract whereon the Furnace standeth" some other real estate
and "one hundred acres on the north side of the south branche
of French Creek in such place as she shall think proper to Build
a Furnace on * * *." His nephew, Samuel Nutt, and Re-
becca, his wife, were made resuduary legatees.
Differences having arisen between Nutt and Branson, the
partnership in the iron works was dissolved and each erected
separate furnaces. Branson erected Redding furnace in 1736-7.
and the furnace erected in 1737-8 as provided for in Samuel
Nutt's will was called Warwick furnace.
Ann Nutt conveyed a large part or interest in Warwick furnace
to her son Samuel Savage, Jr.. who became its proprietor on its
completion. He also acquired a plantation in Coventry township,
and his brother Thomas, who died unmarried in 1739, devised
him a plantation in Nantmeal township. Samuel Savage, Jr.,
married prior to 1733, Ann Taylor, daughter of Isaac Taylor,
Deputy Surveyor General for Chester county, by his wife Martha
Roman, and granddaughter of John Taylor, who came from Wilt-
shire, England, in 1684, and settled in Chester county. She was
a member of the Society of Friends and was disowned for mar-
GEO. TAYLOR, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 103
riage "out of unity" in the year above mentioned. Her husband,
Samuel Savage, died leaving a will dated September 22, 1741,
which was probated May 26, 1742. It devised to his wife, Ann,
the rents, issues and profits of his two plantations for life, and
also the sole use, rents, issue and profits of his share and part in
the iron furnace called Warwick furnace "to be by her possest
and enjoyed until my son, Samuel, shall arrive at the age of
twenty-one years." She was named executrix ; her brother, John
Taylor, Henry Hockley (who had married Esther Rutter, aunt
of the testator), and John Potts (who had married his sister,
Ruth Savage), were to assist her and act as trustees for the
children.
The widow (Ann Savage) married, sometime in 1742, George
Taylor, and he in accordance with the laws and usages of Colonial
times assumed control of his wife's business affairs and estate
including the settlement of her former husband's estate. For
some part of the period of the minority of the son, the furnace
was leased, John Potts, the brother-in-law, was the lessee in
1744 and paid the rent to George Taylor, but for a great part of
the period it was operated under the management of George
Taylor, who was also manager of Coventry forge. Samuel Nutt,
Jr., died soon after his uncle, Samuel Nutt, Sr., and the widow
Rebecca (Savage) Nutt married Robert Grace, the friend of Dr.
Benjamin Franklin, to whom the great philosopher entrusted the
manufacture of his scientifically constructed iron fireplaces.
The coming of age of Samuel Savage, third, in 1752, termi-
nated Taylor's proprietorship of Warwick furnace, and there
had probably been some friction between him and Mrs. Nutt and
Robert Grace, the other parties interested, as evidenced by the
following entry in the day book of Coventry forge :
"April 24th. 1752,— Carried a letter to George Taylor from Anna Nutt
and Robert Grace to discharge the sd Geo. Taylor as manager for the
sd Nutt and Grace as their manager at Coventry Forge and the sd
Taylor took the letter from me and said he would write an answer as
soon as he had time to do so.
his
(Signed) Michael X Dodson.
Witness, Jno. Hunt." mark
The tax lists of Chester county for the period covering the early
residence of George Taylor at Warwick are missing. His nam/^
104 GEO. TAYLOR, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
appears on those of East Nantmeal township, for the years 1747,
1750, 1753, and 1754, but not later. He was captain of one of
the Associated Companies of Chester county in 1747, of which
Samuel Flower, later his partner at Durham, was colonel. Robert
Grace was also captain of a company in the same regiment.
As above stated Mrs. Taylor's tenure of, and interest in War-
wick furnace terminated at about this time, though she held a
life interest in the two farms. In the meantime William Branson
had conveyed all his lands, furnaces and forges to his four
daughters and their husbands, Samuel Flower, Bernard Van
Leer, Richard Hockley and Lynford Lardner, though the furnace
seems to have been run in his name until his death in 1760. It
was later operated for several years by Col. Samuel Flower,
but along with Warwick furnace and Coventry forge passed to
the ownership of Rutter & Potts during the Revolution.
Samuel Flower, as part owner of Redding furnace, was doubt-
less well acquainted with the resources and abilities of George
Taylor, and in the spring of 1755 joined him in leasing Durham
iron works in Bucks county for a term of five years. The works
were then owned by William Logan, Arithony Morris and others
and were operated under the firm name of William Logan &
Company.
A letter written by William Logan to Richard Peters in refer-
ence to some surveys being made of land adjoining the Durham
tract under date of 11 mo. 10th, 1755, in which he enclosed a
letter of George Taylor, says :
"I just now reed, the Inclosed from Durham. The person that
writes it is one in Company with Capt. Flower, who has leased Dur-
ham Works for five years." (See Penna. Arch. 1st. Series Vol. II,
p. 479.)
Unfortunately the "inclosed" was not published but there is
abundant evidence that the writer "was George Taylor. In a long
statement of William Peters and Jacob Duche in reference to the
influence of the Quakers over the Indians at the treaty at Easton
in November, 1756, published in Pennsylvania Archives, 1st
Series, Vol. Ill, p. 274, is the following.
* * * "And we having been previously told by ye Govrs Secre-
tary yt ye Govr and he had been informed by Mr. Taylor, ye Iron-
master at Durham, at whose house they lay on their way to Easton
&c."
GEO. TAYLOR, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 105
Letters recently published in "Correspondence with Early Iron
Masters" in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Bio-
graphy, include one written from Durham by Geo. Taylor under
date of May 6, 1757, ordering supplies for the Durham Company.
Another dated at Durham Oct. 8, 1757, signed by Wm. Harrison,
the bookkeeper, written to the same parties begins, "Mr. Taylor
desires you to send per bearer ." Still another letter
by Harrison is dated Aug. 28. 1757. x\s further proof that
George Taylor was at Durham in 1757 the records of the Court
of Quarter Sessions of Bucks county show^ that he was appointed
March 17, 1757, as one of a jury to review a road from Durham
through Springfield, and signed the return of review June 13,
1757. He was commissioned a justice of the peace for Bucks
county, February 28, 1761, and is on record as acknowledging a
deed as such a justice at Durham, May 25, 1763.
In 1763 he removed to Easton, and seems to have had the
leading part in the erecting of the courthouse, though he is not
named as one of the trustees by the Act of /Assembly passed
March 4, 1763.
He was elected to Provincial Assembly from Northampton in
1764 and was regularly re-elected thereafter until 1770. He was
commissioned a justice of the peace for Northampton county,
November 19, 1764, and again March 15, 1766. As a legislator
his eminent ability was at once recognized. 1765 he was ap-
pointed to draw up the address from the Assembly of Pennsyl-
vania to the king on the subject of the Stamp Act, and this de-
mand for the repeal of the obnoxious act does him great credit.
On March 10, 1767, Col. Taylor purchased a tract of 331 acres
of land in what is now the borough of Catasauqua, Northampton
County, on which he had been erected a substantial stone house
still standing. From the fact that the George Taylor tract was
part of the same original patent of which a Nathaniel Taylor
owned part, it has been assumed, without authority, that George
Taylor was his son. Mrs. Taylor died in that Catasauqua house,
and in 1776 he sold the property to John Benezet. There is no
information at hand to show when he removed from there, but
letters w^ritten by him in 1772, dated from Northamptontown
(Allentown) suggest that he may have been living with his son
James at that place, James having moved there from Easton in
106 GEO. TAYLOR, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
1772. At that time Allentown was in Northampton Comity, and
George Taylor continued to act as a justice of the peace for that
county. On March 9, 1774, he was commissioned by the gov-
ernor with a Dedimus Protcstatuni, to administer the oaths of
office to the new county officials.
The deed of partition dividing the Durham property bears date
December 24, 1773, and early in 1774 George Taylor leased that
part which had been allotted to the Galloways. He then moved
to Durham in Bucks County, where he made his home until 1779.
when he moved to Greenwich Township, New Jersey, and in
April 1780 moved to Easton.
On September 21, 1774, he was named as a member of the
Committee of Observation by the Committee of Safety of North-
ampton County. He was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly
from Northampton County in 1775, and represented that county
as a delegate to the Provincial Convention held at Philadelphia
January 23, 1775. However, though he continued a member of
the Assembly and assisted in drafting the instructions to the
delegates to the Continental Congress named by that body, there
is abundance of evidence that he was a resident of Durham from
1774 or early in 1775 until 1779.
At a regularly advertised meeting of "The Officers of the
Different Associated Companies of Bucks County," held at John
Bogart's tavern in Buckingham, July 20, 1775. for the purpose
of electing field officers for the three battalions of said associa-
tors, he was elected colonel of the Third Battalion, with Robert
Robinson as lieutenant colonel, John Tenbrook as first major,
John Heany as second major, and John Keller as standard bearer.
The advertisement of a post rider in the Pennsylvania Gazette
of August 20, 1775, "proposes to go from Philadelphia to Allen-
town in Northampton county, once a week" gives among his
references "George Taylor, at Durham.
While there is no evidence that Colonel Taylor ever saw any
active service in the field as commander of the Third Battalion
of the Bucks County Associators, he very evidently accepted the
position, was commissioned, and took part in the drilling and
organization of the battalion. He is almost invariably referred
to and addressed as "Coll. Taylor" by his friends and others in
their correspondence from the date of his appointment, and is
GEO. TAYLOR, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 107
referred to in contemporaneous accounts by that title. He was
probably selected by reason of his military experience as captain
of the associators in 1747 in Chester county. After the battalion
was organized it was left in command of Lieutenant Colonel Rob-
inson, while Colonel Taylor was occupied as a member of Assem-
bly, a delegate to Continental Congress, where he showed marked
ability, as well as in a number of other positions of legislative and
diplomatic character, and in the management of his furnace at
Durham which was the first to turn out ammunition for the use
of the patriot army.
When four of the delegates to Continental Congress from
Pennsylvania declined to sign the Declaration of Independence,
George Taylor was one of the delegates selected in their place
on July 15, 1776. He immediately took his seat and when the en-
grossed copy of the historic document was presented before Con-
gress for the signatures of the delegates, he signed it on August
2, 1776. Some months later he was one of the committee of
Congress who drew up resolutions calling upon the Assembly
of the several states to raise troops for the defense of American
liberties. On January 20, 1777, he was selected by Congress to
arrange for and preside at the Indian treaty at Easton.
On March 4, 1777, he was elected a member of the first Su-
preme Executive Council, the executive department of the Com-
monwealth of Pennsylvania under the constitution of 1776, from
Northampton county. He was one of the most active members
of this body and in daily attendance of its sessions, filling im-
portant positions, until about the middle of April when he came
home to Durham sick. The following autograph letter in posses-
sion of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, written to Timo-
thy Matlack, Secretary of the Commonwealth, explains his
absence.
"Durham, May 24th, 1777.
Sir^
I have been confined to my chamber for four weeks past by a violent
fever. I am just now beginning to walk about. You wnll please let his
Excellency the President, know that as soon as my health will permit
I will attend the Council.
I am with great Respt, &c,
Sir, Your Most Humbl Servt.
GEO. TAYLOR."
To Timothy Matlack, Esqr."
108 GEO. TAYLOR, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
Whether his continued indisposition prevented his returning
as promised in the above letter, or whether it was found more
advisable for him to remain at the furnace in order to more
rapidly fill his large contracts with the government for round
shot does not appear, but there is no record of his having ever
attended the Council after the above date, and on November,
1777, Major Jacob Arndt, of Easton, was elected in his stead.
In December, 1773, after the Durham tract had been par-
titioned among the several owners and that part on which the
iron works and mines were located adjudged to Grace Galloway,
daughter and heir of Lawrence Growdon and wife of Joseph
Galloway, George Taylor leased the iron works of Galloway for
a term of five years, with the privilege of five years more.
Unfortunately the early records of the Durham iron works
have not been preserved and we have to rely on contemporaneous
correspondence and accounts for the scanty scraps of history of
the works down to 1779.
It is evident, however, that George Taylor carried on a success-
ful business for five years from 1774 to 1778 inclusive, not only
in the production of pig iron and bar iron made at the forges in
New Jersey in which he was interested, but in the sale of country
castings, and stoves (including Franklin stoves which were made
at Durham). An important department of his business, which
was a great feature of every furnace of that day, was the com-
munity supply department, through which the people of the
neighborhood were supplied with every article of local consump-
tion and industry from a yard of tickenburg or a pound of sugar
to a gallon of whiskey or molasses, there is even a record of
a hat obtained for Mrs. Miller "to be somewhat in the fashion."
There was very little ready money in those days and the farmers
often paid for the necessities of life and the implements of their
industry by hauling iron or charcoal or cutting and "coaling" the
immense quantities of wood needed at the works.
With the very beginning of preparation for armed resistance to
British aggression in 1775, Col. Taylor prepared himself to manu-
facture cannon balls for use of the patriot army. On August 2,
1775, he secured a contract from the State Committee of Safety,
estimating that he could make the delivery at twenty pounds per
ton, the committee thought his bid too high and requested him to
GEO. TAYLOR, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 109
reduce it to sixteen pounds which he readily agreed to do, but
found later that he was a considerable loser at that price and on
October 18, 1775, the Commissary board "after consulting Mr.
Grubb and Mr. Potts, iron masters, were of the same opinion
and he was allowed eighteen pounds per ton." He made his
first shipment which consisted of 18, 24 and 32 pounders on
August 25, 1775, which is acknowledged by the Commissary
Robert Towers, this was quickly followed by other shipments at
short intervals, and many tons were furnished long before the
Declaration of Independence. And moreover his shipments seem
to have been the very first that were delivered by any furnace in
Pennsylvania. His shipments consisted of cannon balls, but I
also find on the minutes of the committee of safety that the
commissary of military supplies was directed to w^rite to him to
send down a sample of his small cannon for inspection, show-
ing that he also made cannon, but there is no record of his can-
non shipments. The production of shot and cannon balls also of
bar shot (consisting of two half shot or cannon balls separated
and held together by a strong square bar of wrought iron,) were
continued vmder the tenure of the Backhouse & Company firm,
the account books of which are in possession of the Bucks County
Historical Society and show^ that hundreds of tons were furnished
the government 1780 to 1782.
When Joseph Galloway, after his strenuous efforts to induce
Franklin and others to join him in an effort to secure redress of
the grievances of the colonies by peaceable means, had finally been
put to flight by the "rabble" he so much detested, and had taken
refuge within the British lines, he was attainted as a traitor and
his property, including the Durham works, (held in right of his
wife) was seized by Col. George Wall, Jr., the agent for forfeited
estates. George Taylor claimed that he was promised and en-
titled to a renewal of his lease just exiring, and set the following
appeal to the Supreme Executive Council.
"To the Honble. the Supreme Executive Council for the State of
Pennsylvania.
The Petition of George Taylor, of Durham, in the County of Bucks,
Humbly Sheweth,
That your Petitioner about five years ago, rented from Joseph Gallo-
way, late of the City of Philadelphia, the Lands and Works called and
known by the name of Durham Furnace, at the yearly rent of five
110 GEO. TAYLOR, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
hundred and fifty pounds, but from the unsettled state of affairs and
the scarcity of hands for these two years past, he was rendered unable
to carry them on to any Advantage, as the last year he made but a
small quantity of shot for the Continental Navy, and the present year
he has not been able even to blow the Furnace. And as your Peti-
tioner was to have the Privilege under his present Lease, which will
not expire until November next, of having it renewed upon the same
terms for five years more, upon his giving five Months Notice, and as
your Petitioner has not had it in his power to give such Notice, neither
was it his wish to have any correspondence with Mr. Galloway in the
Situation & Circumstances as he now is, and not knowing till very lately
where to apply, he now humbly hopes, that under his present 'Cir-
cumstances,' the Honoble Council will permit the renewal of his Lease
agreeable to the Covenant in the Agreement between Mr. Galloway
and him, rhore especially when it is considered, that your Petitioner
has now at the Furnace above named three hundred Tons of Ore,
and a large Quantity of Wood ready cut on a Tract of Wood Land
near Durham which he purchased, and which is of no other Value
but for the Wood on it, all of which has cost your Petitioner a consid-
erable sum of money — And your Petitioner would further beg leave to
represent to the Honble Council, that last week a certain George Wall
calling himsel. an Agent for the forfeited Estates in Bucks County,
came to the Works and before making any Application or giving any
information to your Petitioner, and in his absence, then ordered the
hands at work not to proceed in the employ. Since when a certain
James Morgan who says he acts under and by the Authority of the
said George Wall, has removed as your Petitioner is informed, a Quan-
tity of mettle I.'^ng at the Stamping Mill, and which your Petitioner
conceives to be his property under the Present Lease. He therefore
humbly prays the Attention of the Honble Council to the above Rep-
resentation and that Direction may be given that your Petitioner may
not be disturbed in the quiet and peaceable Possession of the Premises
luring his present lease thereof.
And Your Petitioner as in Duty Bound will ever pray,
Philadelphia. July 22d. 1778." ^^'^^ '^^^LOR.
Upon which petition the council made the following order the
same day.
"Ordered, That Mr. George W^all be directed to pay due respect to
the written Agreement between Joseph Galloway Esqr & the Hon'ble
George Taylor, Esqr for the land and works known as Durham Fur-
nace & that he do not disturb Mr. Taylor in the peaceable enjoyment
and possession thereof agreeable to the terms of the said agreement.
And the said George Taylor has represented that he had a quantity of
wood cut & ore raised at a considerable expense it appears to the Coun-
cil to be just & equitable that he should have a Lease of the premises
so long as the Council or their Agents are authorized by law to let the
GEO. TAYLOR, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 111
same in preference to any other on such reasonable terms as may ap-
pear to be just. The Council therefore recommended it to Mr. George
Wall to treat with said George Taylor, relating to the premises &
agree with him on equitable & reasonable terms. Such Lease not to
be extended beyond the first day of April, 1780." (Minutes of Council.
—Col. Rec. Vol. XI, P. 537.)
The lands and works, or the use of same, "During the Life of
Joseph Galloway only" were sold "at public Vendue at the Court
House at Newtown on the twenty-third day of August" 1779,
by George Wall, Agent for Bucks County Forfeited Estates, and
were bought by Richard Backhouse, and were put into operation
the following spring under the firm name of Richard Backhouse
& Company, which included Col. Richard Backhouse, Col. Isaac
Sidman, Col. Robert Lettis Hopoer, Jr., and Col. George Taylor.
The books show that Col. Taylor was paid one thousand pounds
for the ore which he had on hand at the works. This company
operated the furnace and stamping mill until after Col. Taylor's
death, settlement being made with his executors for his interest
therein.
George Taylor seems to have retained possession of the works
and continued his residence at Durham until 1779, when he
moved to Greenwich Township, Sussex (now Warren) County,
New Jersey. At that place the Greenwich Forge was located
which was operated in conjuction with Durham works, as Dur-
ham pig iron was refined there. During April 1780, he removed
to Easton, Pa.
Col. Taylor's residence in Easton was at the corner of Fourth
and Ferry streets, in what is known as the Parsons-Taylor house,
but he was never the owner of this house. He died, in that house,
on February 23, 1781, and was buried in the graveyard of the
Lutheran Church directly across the street from his home. His
body was later removed to the Easton Cemetery, where a monu-
ment had been erected to his memory in 1855 by the citizens of
Easton and vicinity.
George Taylor was one of the brilliant forceful men of his
time, an earnest and ardent patriot in the trying times of his
adopted country's needs, a fearless and able legislator seasoning
every act of his long public career, by hard robust, conservative
conimon sense. He seems to have been held in high esteem by
1 12 GEO. TAYLOR, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
those with whom he was associated in the pubHc service and his
advice was frequently sought as to public measures.
I am greatly indebted to Dr. B. F. Fackenthal Jr., of Riegels-
ville, for valuable assistance in compiling the data contained in
these pages. Dr. Fackenthal has long taken a great interest in
the life of George Taylor and has in his possession numerous
letters and copies of letters throwing light on the subject.
Through him I was put into communication with Col. W. Gordon
McCabe, of Richmond, Virginia, president of the Historical So-
ciety of Viginia, president of the Virginia Society Sons of the
Revolution, chairman of the Committee on Portraits of Inde-
pendence Hall, etc., etc. Col. McCabe is a great-great-grandson
of Col. George Taylor and has a great number of autograph
papers and other documents of his distinguished ancestor. A
letter of Col. McCabe's which I have before me, says that among
these papers is a "letter (never published) writen by (Col.)
Clement Biddle to George Taylor the very day the Declaration
was passed full of most interesting items in reference to the move-
ment of troops and the general military situation. There are
also sketches of plats of land George Taylor had bought and
much about casting shot, etc."
Col. George Taylor left to survive him, four grandchildren,
the children of his only son, James Taylor, born at Warwick
furnace. East Nantmeal township, Chester county. Pa., in 1746,
died at Easton, October 9, 1775. He studied law and was ad-
mitted to the Easton bar in 1765, and practiced law at Easton
and Allentown until his death. He married in 1767, Elizabeth
Gordon, born at Philadelphia. May 28, 1750. Her father,
Lewis Gordon, was for sometime prothonotary of the county of
Northampton and treasurer of the Committee of Safety of that
county, 1775-76. The children of James and Elizabeth Gordon
Taylor removed to Virginia, after the death of their grandfather,
with their maternal relatives. Col. James Taylor, Jr., married
his first cousin, Maria Miranda Gordon, and they we,re the grand-
parents of Col. W. Gordon McCabe above mentioned. An oil
portrait of Col. George Taylor was taken to Virginia by his
grandchildren, but it was left rolled too long and the two sur-
faces of the painting adhered together causing them to peel on
being unrolled, and the painting being ruined was burned.
PARSONS-TAYLOR HOUSE, EASTON, PA.
The oldest house in Easton, Pa. Built by William Parsons, the founder
of Easton, sometime between 1753 and 1757, and first occupied by him April,
1757. Later the home of George Taylor, one of the signers of the Declara-
tion of Indeijendence, who leased the house and premises from the Estate of
John Huglies, and moved there from Greenwich Forge, X. J., about April
10. 1780, and wherein he died February 23, 1781. At that time the property
included all of Lot Xo. 176 on the original plan of Easton, 60 feet on Hamil-
ton (now Fourth) Street, and 220 feet on Ferry Street. The old engravings
show that there were kitchen and other out buildings attached to the stone
house, the size of which is 27 feet front on Ferry Street, and 17 feet 9 inches
front on Fourth Street. That imrt of the property on which the house stands
21 feet by 27 feet, was purchased January 15, 1906, by the George Taylor
Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, which has placed a bronze
tablet on the Fourth Street side, with the following inscription : —
THIS HOUSE BUILT IN 1757 BY
WILLIAM PARSONS
SURVEYOR GENERAL OF PENNSYLVANIA
AND THE HOME OF
GEORGE TAYLOR
SIGNFR OF
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
IS MAINTAINED BY THE
GEORGE TAYLOR CHAPTER
DAUGHTERS OF THE
AMERICAN REVOLUTION
AS AN HISTORICAL MEMORIAL
1906
The Homes of George Taylor, Signer of the Declaration of
Independence.
Paper read before the George Taylor Chapter, Daughters of the American
Revolution, at Easton, Pa., December 6, 1922.
BY B. F. FACKENTIIAL, JR., SC.D., OF RIEGELSVILLE, PA.
(This paper was not read before the Bucks County Historical Society,
but in view of the fact that it is a complement to the paper presented
by Mr. Ely, its publication has been requested, and it seems fitting there-
fore that it should be printed in our proceedings.)
ON our great national holiday, last July (1922) when Mrs.
Fackenthal entertained the members of this Chapter at
Riegelsville. I was a privileged guest, and in an unguarded
moment exhibited to your Regent my file of George Taylor papers,
contained in a special drawer set aside for that purpose. Seeing
so many papers may have led her to suppose that it was new ma-
terial, whereas there is but little to tell about this man, whose
memory your society has honored, that is not already known to
most of you. There has however been very little written about
his homes which is made the special subject of this paper.
It is unfortunate that historians have fallen into errors in their
accounts of this interesting man. Corrections do not always cor-
rect, or reach the same readers. This is true not only of the life
and services of George Taylor, but of many items of other his-
tory as well.
The story that George Taylor was a redemptioner ; that he
came to America "with his parents" from Ireland in 1736, and first
settled at Durham Furnace, where he was a furnace filler ; that he
was the son of Nathaniel Taylor of the Irish settlement in North-
amption County; that he came to America with his father and a
younger brother; and such like statements, are made by all his
biographers. Just where these false and misleading statements
originated have not been determined. They are doubtless all based
on Sanderson's Lives of the Signers, first published in 1823-27,
and revised by Henry D. Gilpin, Esq., (b. 1801, d. 1859), a promi-
nent Philadelphia lawyer, who in 1840, was Attorney General of
the United States. The same erroneous accounts are contained in
the Lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, by
114 HOMES OF GEORGE TAYLOR
Rev. Charles H. Goodrich, New York, 1829; A Compendious
History of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, 1831,
by Dr. Nathaniel Dwight ; Biographies of the Signers of the Decla-
ration of Independence, by L. Carrel Judson, Philadelphia, 1839;
Lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, by Ben-
son J. Lossing, 1848; Henry's History of the Lehigh Valley,
Easton, 1860; and in Condit's History of Easton, 1885. County
and State histories, biographical dictionaries and encyclopaedias
repeat the same story, and local historians naturally follow along
the same lines, and all inter alia, say that he was born in Ireland.
Newly discovered evidence, however, points to England as his
birthplace, and the Taylor family tradition that he came from
Ireland, may be wrong. This is confirmed by his bookplate,
which throws a flood of light on his ancestry. It contains the
coat of arms of the Taylors of Durant, the ancient Taylor family
of Derbyshire, England. One of his bookplates has been pre-
sented to me by the American Antiquarian Society of Worcester,
Mass., from which the engraving shown herewith has been made.
As can be seen it contains his autograph signature, and the date
1778. The American Antiquarian Society has another copy of
this bookplate, with his signature bearing date 1776. A third
bookplate (of which a photostat has been sent me), bearing date
1776, is in the unique collections of signers autographs owned
by Mr. Kenyon V. Painter of Cleveland, Ohio. In the appraise-
ment of Geo. Taylor's estate there were 79 books, all of which
doubtless contained his bookplate. It is not likely that George
Taylor would have used this bookplate if not entitled to do so,
and further suggests that he may have been in touch with the
English family of Taylors and most likely a kinsman.
I remember in 1898 sending a signed communication to an
Easton newspaper, in which I took exception to certain state-
ments made by a prominent historian of Easton in his lecture on
the life of George Taylor. He had repeated the erroneous state-
ments to which I have referred, and moreover placed special
emphasis on a statement that George Taylor was guarding the
Atlantic coast during the Revolutionary War. He read copies of
several letters signed by a George Taylor, written from Free-
hold and Shrewsbury in New Jersey, to justify himself.
It was later shown that those letters had not been written by our
^^^^//^
GEORGE TAYLOR'S BOOKPLATE.
Coat of Arms of the ancient Taylor family of
Uurant Hall, Derbyshire, England. (The heiress
married Sir Charles Sliyrmsher, Knight Templar
Charles 2nd.) , , ^
Arms: Ermine on a chevron gules between
three anchors, as many escallops argent.
Crest : A Stork resting the dexter foot on
an anchor proper.
HOMES OF GEORGE TAYLOR 115
George Taylor, but by another of that name. This is more
clearly pointed out by Mr. Simon Gratz, in his delightful Book
about Autographs.^ Mr. Gratz shows that one of the letters, to
which I have referred, published in the Pennsylvania Archives-
and the other one formerly in possession of Mr. L. C. Cist of St,
Louis, are not by our George Taylor. In like manner a docu-
ment in the manuscript department of the Pennsylvania Historical
Society at Philadelphia, dated February 3, 1763, and a letter in
the Congressional Library at Washington, are not genuine. The
one at Washington bears date 1793, whereas our George Taylor
passed away in 1781. I have examined many autograph letters
and documents containing the signature of George Taylor, includ-
ing copies of those contained in the twenty-two complete sets of
autographs of the signers, as detailed by Mr. Charles F. Jenkins
in his splendid article published in the Pennsylvania Magazine of
History, Vol. 49, p. 231, and have never seen a signature of George
Taylor where he writes his name out in full, but always Geo.
Taylor.-^ y^ .
We have to thank the late Gov. Samuel W. Pennypacker for
aiding us in the most incidental way, in obtaining a correct his-
tory of George Taylor during the early years of his life in
America. It is said of Mr. Pennypacker that he had made an
arrangement with the employees of a certain papermill, using old
paper, by which they laid aside for his inspection all old books
and documents published prior to a certain date, 1820 I think, and
in that way he secured many books and papers that were scarce
and of historic value. On one occasion, not many years prior to
his death, he stopped a cart passing through the streets of Potts-
town, Pa., loaded with old junk, which on examination was found
to contain among other old paper, the Potts books and papers on
their way to the scrap heap. He purchased the load and thus
secured 110 ledgers and other account books of early forges and
1 A Book About Autographs by Mr. Simon Gratz, p. 249 ; Campbell, Phila-
delphia, 1920.
2 Pennsylvania Archives, Fir.st .Series. Vol. V, p. 49. The original of this
letter is now in possession of Haverford College.
2a Under date of July 4, 1926, Mr. .Jenkins revised his list and now reports
having located 27 complete sets of signer's autographs.
116 HOMES OF GEORGE TAYLOR
blast furnaces, including Coventry, Pine, Mount Pleasant, Pool,
Valley and Pottsgrove forges and Colebrookdale, Christine, Red-
ding and Warwick blast furnaces. Colebrookdale was the very
first blast furnace in Pennsylvania, built in 1720, which was
seven years before Durham blast furnace was built. The Govern-
or had these books bound, indexed and annotated. I had the
pleasure of looking through them in his library at Schwenksville.
At the sale of his library, by his executors, these old ledgers were
bought by the Pennsylvania Historical Society, where they may
be consulted by any one interested.
When Dr. Henry C. Mercer was preparing his book on fire-
backs and stoveplates for publication, called The Bible in Iron,
published in 1914, Mr. Warren S. Ely went over to Schwenks-
ville to search through these Potts books for stoveplate-informa-
tion, as firebacks and stoveplates were cast at Colebrookdale,
Christine ; Redding and Warwick furnaces at an early day. Mr.
Ely spent some days in his researches and was surprised to find
that George Taylor had for many years been connected with
Coventry Forge and Warwick Furnace, and that it was there, in
Chester County, on French Creek, and not at Durham Furnace
that he established himself in 1736, on his arrival in America.
Mr. Ely has given us the benefit of this new George Taylor in-
formation in his splendid paper read before the Bucks County
Historical Society in 1918. (See ante, page 101.) The Potts
books show that George Taylor began his metallurgical career a.'?
bookkeeper at those works ; that he was promoted to the position
of manager, and on the death of Samuel Savage, Jr., early in
1742, married, before the close of the same year, his widow,
whose maiden name was Ann Taylor, daughter of Isaac Taylor,
Deputy Surveyor General of Chester County. He then assumed
control of his wife's business and settled the estate of Mr. Savage.
The Historical Society at Doylestown has lately come into
possession of two documents in the handwriting of George Tay-
lor, both bearing his signature. One dated 1739, is an invoice
to Hon. Thomas Penn for pig iron shipped, presumably from
Warwick Furnace, to Clement Plumstead, the other dated 1741,
is an agreement with an inventory of teams, wagons and other
personal property at Warwick Furnace, when a one-half interest
thereof w^as about to be leased to John Potts. I take pleasure in
ja,>f JO o
f^^f' tf /;/^A//r/^'^^>
^ ^,^^ /r. ^.,, .-/.
^c:^
INVOICE FOR PIG IROX. XOVEME5ER 6-22. 1739.
In the handwriting- of George Taylor, with his .signature as clerk for
Ann Nutt & Co.. at Warwicl: Furnace. The earliest known signature of
George Tavlor. Original in Library of Bucks County Historical Society.
nOxMES OF GEORGE TAYLOR 117
presenting this Chapter with photostats of these two documents.-'
In 1752, when Samuel Savage, the third (son of Samuel Sav-
age, Jr., deceased), came of age no time was lost in serving writ-
ten notice on George Taylor, asking him to resign the manage-
ment of Coventry Forge. About that time Mrs. Taylor's tenure
of, and interest in the Warwick Furnace terminated, although she
held a life interest in the two farms. The Taylors continued to
reside in Chester County until 1754 or 1755, when George Taylor
and Samuel Flower formed a co-partnership and leased the Dur-
ham Iron Works in Durham Township, Bucks County, Pa., for
a period of five years, with the privilege of five additional years.
The George Taylors then moved to Durham. During this lease-
hold they made "cannon shot" at Durham, presumably for the
Provincial Government during the French and Indian War.^
There is much documentary evidence to show Taylor's residence
in Durham, such as his appointment on a jury to review a road,
his commission as a justice of the peace in 1757 and again in
1761 and 1763, as well as his letters written from there. His
home w^as in the so-called "Mansion House," on the Durham
Road about one-fourth mile west of the site of the 1727 blast
furnace. It is said that the original house was destroyed by fire,
and the new stone house, still standing, was built on the old foun-
dations. The Galloway heirs later sold the farm on which the
house was located to the Longs. After the death of Richard
Backhouse in 1795, his son James converted this Mansion House
into a hotel, for which he was first granted a license in 1798. It
had always been the polling place for Durham Township, but
when abandoned as a public house in 1871, a special election was
held on June 21st of that year, wdien it was decided to remove the
polling place to the village of Monroe. It was in that old house, in
Durham Township, during his second leasehold of Durham fur-
nace, that George Taylor made his home for a second time, when
he signed the Declaration of Independence. It is likely that a
monument will be erected to mark the site, and also one to mark
the site of the old Durham blast furnace built in 1727, now the
property of Harvey F. Riegel. An old stone arch of this furnace
can still be seen surrounded by a growth of trees. Occasionally
3 An etching- of the document dated 1739, is shown herewith. It contains
the earnest known signature of Geo. Taylor, and is signed by him as clerk
for Anna Nutt & Co.
4 See Bucks County Court Records, September Term, 1765.
118 HOMES OF GEORGE TAYLOR
cannon balls and shot are found on property adjacent to the old
furnace-site. There are quite a number of cannon balls and shot
now in the museum of the Bucks County Historical Society,
which were cast at Durham.
During the latter part of 1763, at the expiration of his ten years
lease of Durham Iron Works, George Taylor, with his family,
moved to Easton doubtless making his home in the stone house
at the northeast corner of Northampton and Fermer (now Sec-
ond) Streets, which he bought at sheriff's sale December 23, 1761,
as the property of Jacob Bachman.^ This was Lot No. 24, on the
original plan of Easton. size 60 feet on Northampton and 220
feet on Second Streets. The stone house now standing on that
comer is doubtless the same house that was occupied by George
Taylor. The deed is not recorded, nor was it acknowledged in the
prothonotary's office. The price paid. £117, 15s, lOd., indicates that
the property was improved when he bought it. There is no ex-
planation as to the use he made of that property from the time
he bought it in 1761 until he moved into it in 1763. While living
there he also obtained possession of Lot No. 7Z on the opposite
or northwest corner of the same streets, size 55 feet by 220 feet,
whereon he built a stone stable. It appears that this lot had not
been patented, and Taylor occupied it by permission of the Penns.
It was on that corner, where in after years, the home of Alexander
Wilson was located. On August 24, 1779, George Taylor sold
Lot No. 24 to Theophilus Shannon for the sum of £1,300 Penn-
sylvania money (currency was then depreciated), and at the same
time he sold his interest in Lot No. TZ, with stone stable to the
same party for the sum of £100 Pennsylvania money. In the
deeds transferring these properties he describes himself as living
in Greenwich Township, Sussex (now Warren) County, New
Jersey. (Deed Book D, Vol. I. pp. 179 and 180.)
After moving to Easton he at once took an active part in
public affairs, showing that he must have been a prominent and
influential citizen. He took a leading part in building the new
courthouse, all moneys for which, it is said, passed through his
hands. He was a member of the Provincial Assembly from 1764
to 1769 inclusive. He was commissioned a Justice of the Peace
5 Lot No. 24 was patented to Jacob Bachman March 14, 1754, Patent book
A, Vol. 18, p. 236. Bachman mortgaged it to John Potts November 27, 1754.
The mortgage was foreclosed and the property bought by Geo. Taylor.
GEORGE TAYLOR HOUSE AT LOWER CATASAUQUA, LEHIGH COUNTY, PA.
(Prior to 1812, Allen Township, Northampton County.)
On March 10, 1767, George Tavlor purchased from Thomas Armstrong, 331 acres of
land on the Lehigh River in Allen Township, part of a larger tract known a^ the Manor
of Chawton," on which this substantial stone house had been built. Mrs Taylor passed
awav in this house in 1768. On March 27, 1776. George Taylor conveyed the Property to
John Benezet of Philadelphia, but prior to that time he moved to Durham m Bucks County,
probably in 1774 when for a second time he leased the Durham Iron Works, where he was
living oil August 2, 1776, when he signed the Declaration of Independence.
HOMES OF GEORGE TAYLOR 119
for Northampton County in 1764 and regularly thereafter until
1772.
On March 10, 1767, he bought a tract of 331 acres of land,
fronting on the Lehigh River, in Allen Township, at what is now
Lower Catasauqua, ' Lehigh County, being part of a larger
tract known as the "Manor of Chawton." (Deed book B, Vol. I,
p. 102, etc.) On this property there had been built a substantial
stone house with walls two feet thick which is still standing in
a fairly good state of preservation. He sold this x\llen Township
property to John Benezet, the deed bears date March 27, 1776.
It appears, however, that he moved to Durham prior to that time,
probably in 1774, when he leased the Durham property from
Joseph Galloway. During the year 1772 some of his letters were
written from Northampton (the name of which was changed to
Allentown on April 16, 1838). This suggests that he may, at
that time, have been living with his son James, who moved there
early in 1772. An autograph letter, signed by him, dated De-
cember 30, 1775, now in possession of Haverford College, fixes
his residence in Durham at that time. Just what his object was
in moving to Allen Township does not appear, there were doubt-
less no iron works in that neighborhood, and therefore it is likely
that he was engaged in agricultural pursuits, and besides he had
his public business to attend to. A photograph of his Catasauqua
home, which I presented to this chapter several years ago, hangs
on yonder wall, and an etching of it is shown herewith. In 1912,
when I visited that house, there were a number of firebacks
in the fireplaces. One of them had been presented to the
Lehigh County Historical Society, which suggests that one might
be secured for this room. These plates contain no embellish-
ments other than the initials and date "G. T. 1768." I had one
of them drilled for chemical analysis and found the phosphorus
and manganese to be about five times too high for it to have been
made from Durham ores, and concluded that they were prob-
ably cast at some other blast furnace. '''
On September 17, 1765, George Taylor bought of Peter Kich-
line. Sheriff, as the property of Nicholas Scull, Easton Lot No. 167,
55 feet front on Northampton street, on which Scull had built a
stone house. (Deed book B, Vol I, p. 42.) That property is now
6 Analysis of flreback : Silicon 1.00, phosphorus .54, manganese .56, sul-
phur .067, copper none.
120 HOMES OF GEORGE TAYLOR
owned by the estates of Mary Moyer, C. L. Magee and Jacob
Hay, and is occupied by the United Retail Chemists and the F.
& W. Grand 5, 10, and 25 Cent Store. George Taylor bought
that house for his son James to whom he and his wife. Ann Tay-
lor, conveyed it October 25, 1765, for the" consideration of 5
shillings and "their natural love and affection." (Deed book B.
Vol. I, p. 51, and another corrected deed for same property re-
corded Deed book C, Vol. I, p. 17.)
Later James Taylor moved to Allentown, and while living
there he and his wife Elizabeth conveyed his Easton property,
December 30, 1771, to Myer Hart of Easton. (Deed book C.
Vol. I. p. 18.) On January 2, 1772, James Taylor bought from
Myer Hart, lot No. 342 of the plan of Allentown. (Deed book
C. Vol. I, p. 57.) They may possibly have exchanged properties.
After the death of James Taylor in 1775, his Allentown prop-
erty was sold by the sheriff, on June 19, 1776, and bought by
'Phillip Ritter. (Deed book C, Vol. I, p. 387.) It appears that
George Taylor was frequently called upon, to give financial aid
to his son James.
On May 21, 1763, George Taylor bought certain rights of
Philip Rustein, in Lot No. 502 on James Street in Allentown.
(Deed book A, Vol. I, p. 295) on which a house had been built.
I can find no record to show how Taylor disposed of that property.
Ann, wife of George Taylor, died in 1768, shortly after they
moved into their Catasauqua house. It is not known w^here her
body lies buried, but there is evidence to show that George Tay-
lor, while living in Durham, was connected with the Red Hill
Presbyterian Church. This is further shown by the fact that on
March 8, 1765, a lot of one acre of land ( size 10 perches by 16
perches) at Gallows Hill, on the Durham Road in Bucks County,
was deeded to Rev. Richard Treat and George Taylor, in trust
for that congregation, for a burying ground, and Mrs. Taylor
may have been buried there. (See Bucks County Deed book,
Vol. XX, p. 235.) Some historians theorize that she was buried
at Easton. Some graves found near the Taylor house at Catasau-
qua make it not unlikely that she was buried there. George and
Ann Taylor had two children, Ann, called Nancy, who died in
childhood, and James, who was born at Warwick Furnace in
1746. James married Elizabeth, daughter of Lewis Gordon, who
t^ jLCt-cM"/^'-'^ /:t^>xi/ /-Ca^r- /y^<:e <<?/i'?«<'<i^,<-v tn . C * /^>>»».«^-»!. ^
,^...Ai A SS /. ..^- -^-^ ^-^-' y^5: ^— z'
7'
OATH OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANLV.
As taken by George Taylor, February 3, 1778.
The "Test Oath," required by an Act of Congress passed in 1777.
HOMES OF GEORGE TAYLOR 121
was the first resident lawyer to practice at Easton. Col. McCabe
of Richmond, Va., writes that James and Elizabeth were mere
children when they married. Elizabeth was born August 23,
1750, and was therefore but 25 years old when James died Octo-
ber 9, 1775, at the age of 29 years. After his death their five
small children, George, Ann, Mary, Thomas and James, Jr., were
cared for by their grandfather, George Taylor. Elizabeth, widow
of James, on July 18, 1780, deeded to George Taylor, for the care
and education of her children, the one-half of her interest in the
real estate which she inherited under the will of her father,
Lewis Gordon, which included Easton Lot No. 171, (size 56
feet by 220 feet) on which Abie's Opera House now stands.
(Deed book C. Vol. I. p. 545.)"'' Of the five children of James
and Elizabeth. Ann married Samuel Swann and moved to Pow-
hatton, Virginia, taking with her, and making a home for her two
brothers, George (who did not marry), and James, Jr.; Mary
died young; Thomas was drowned in the Lehigh River; James,
Jr., married his first cousin, Anna Maria Miranda Gordon, at
Alexandria, Va., Dec. 19, 1786. He died at Richmond, Va., in
1837. They were the parents of four children, one of whom.
Sophia Gordon Taylor, married, first, to John Rutledge Smith.
and second, to the Rev. John Collins McCabe, D.D.. of the Episco-
pal Church, who were the parents of Col. W. Gordon McCabe,
Litt.D., LL.D., and who was therefore a great-great-grandson of
George Taylor. Col. McCabe says that George Taylor has many
legitimate descendants living in Virginia.
I have corresponded with Col. McCabe for many years and
had the pleasure of visiting him in his home at Richmond, and
from him obtained much history of his distinguished ancestor.
As can be seen by his will, George Taylor left a family of five
natural children, whose mother was his housekeeper, Naomi
Smith. Some of their descendants added the family name of
Savage, as a middle name, with the intention of representing that
they were legitimate descendants of George Taylor, much to the
annoyance of Col. McCabe and other legitimate descendants.
George Taylor obtained his military title of Colonel on July 21.
1775, when at a meeting held at Bogart's tavern in Bucks County,
7 American Archives, Vol. II, p. 1787 ; Pennsylvania Archives, Fifth Series,
Vol, VIII, p. 14.
oa This deed recites that Elizabeth is about to depart from her usual place
of abode.
122 HOMES OF GEORGE TAYLOR
he was elected Colonel of the Third Battalion of Militia.' Pre-
vious to that time he was enrolled as an "Associator." During
the year 1777. an act was passed called the "Test Act," under
which it was required that every man should take an oath of
allegiance to the Government of the United States. Such as signed
the test oath were called "Associators," and such as did not sign
were called "Non-Associators." Col. George Taylor took this
test oath on February 3. 1778, the original document has been pre-
served, and a photostatic copy sent to me by Hon. James B. Laux.
of New York, in order that I might have the etching made of it
which accompanies this paper. There is no record to show that
Col. Taylor was ever engaged in active military service, he was too
much occupied making ammunition at Durham, and in other pur-
suits in the interest of our new government.
GEORGE TAYLOR LEASES DURHAM IRON WORKS FOR FIVE YEARS,
FROM NOVEMBER 1 773, WITH THE PRIVILEGE OF AN
ADDITIONAL FIVE YEARS.
Although there is evidence to show an earlier iron operation at
Durham, the organized company which built the blast furnace of
1727, dates from 1726. The company was composed of twelve
prominent gentlemen, all from Philadelphia, except Jeremiah
Langhorne, who was from Trevose in Bucks County. '^. When
the property was partitioned among the owners, deed dated De-
cember 24, 1773, (all the original owners having passed away), it
included all of Durham Township (6,410 acres 123 perches) 644
acres in Springfield Township. 30 acres in Lower Saucon Town-
ship and 1,456 acres 29 perches in Williams Township, the last two
townships in Northampton County. 8,511 acres 100 perches in all.
In the partition proceedings, that part of the property contain-
ing the mines, quarries, forges and blast furnace was allotted to
Joseph Galloway and his wife Grace, nee Growden. It appears
however, by the petition addressed by George Taylor to the Su-
preme Executive Council on July 22, 1778, that he had leased the
plant from Joseph Galloway prior to the deed of partition, viz,
during November 1773 for five years, with the privilege of "hav-
ing it renewed upon the same terms, for five years more."
8 The twelve gentlemen forming the original Durham Iron Company were
Jeremiah Langhorne, Anthony Morris, James Logan, Charles Read, Robert
Ellis, George Fitzwater, Clement Plumsted, William Allen, Andrew Bradford,
John Hopkins, Thomas Lindley and Joseph Turner.
HOMES OF GEORGE TAYLOR 123
I need not speak of the loyal services of this patriot
during the Revolutionary struggle, that are so well known to all of
you, but you may not know that George Taylor was the very
first in Pennsylvania to make shot and shells for the Continental
Army. This is clearly shown by his correspondence and by docu-
ments published in the Colonial Records.^ The first shipment of
which we have a record, was made August 25, 1775, and con-
sisted of round shot, viz: 250 of 18 lbs., 4 of 25 lbs. and 4 of
32 lbs. There is much evidence to show that George Taylor was
living at Durham, and engaged in making shot and shell for the
Continental Army from 1775 to 1778 inclusive.
The following letter, in possession of Col. McCabe's family,
addressed to Col. George Taylor at Durham by Clement Biddle,
is not only interesting from an historical standpoint, but also
fixes the residence of George Taylor at Durham on July 4, 1776,
where his home was on August 2, 1776, when he signed the
Declaration of Independence :
Philadelphia, July 4. 1776.
Dear Sire:
I have yours of 3d inst., and am glad of your forwardness with the
Shott — pray send all of them down as soon as possible — we don't know
what hour we may want them — the things ordered shall be prepared
also provided I can get the Salt.
Genl. Howe's army are with the fleet of 130 sail at Sandy Hook
we hourly expect to hear of some important stroke there — we have
about 10,000 Effective men at N. York — 6,000 militia coming from Conn-
ecticut — 3 to 4,000 marched from Jersey toward Amboy — Col. Broad-
head's Rifle men and others of our troops marching to the Jerseys
to join them — a few tories are in arms in Monmouth County — Jersey.
At Charleston, So. Carolina, Genl. Clinton had got one man of war
and 30 transports over the bar but lost a 50 gun ship in attempting to
get over. Genl. Lee had arrived with 1,300 Troops from No. Carolina
to join their Provincial Troops and it said that Charles Town is well
fortified. It thickens around us and the day is big with the fate of
America but I trust that we shall be able by union and perseverence to
establish that freedom and Independence which Congress have just
declared nem con.
I am Dr Sir Yr Hble Servt
CLEMENT BIDDLE.
The three pound shot are so much wanted that I am directed to de-
sire you immediately to send them down by all means.
Addressed to
Col. George Taylor,
Durham.
9 Colonial Records, First Series, Vol. X, pp. 297-298-315-331-339-354-365-
373-381-382-598-690.
124 HOMES OF GEORGE TAYLOR
During George Taylor's leasehold of Durham it appears that a
great part of his pig iron was refined at the Greenwich and Chel-
sea Forges in Greenwich Township, Sussex (now Warren) County,
New Jersey, and that his friend, Richard Backhouse, was asso-
ciated with him, at least for part of the time, in these refining
operations. In two deeds recorded here at Easton, dated August
24, 1779, George Taylor is described as living in Greenwich
Township, New Jersey, doubtless at Greenwich Forge, on Mus-
contecong Creek, about five miles from the site of the old Dur-
ham Furnace. ^^ I am sure the New Jersey members of this Chap-
ter are pleased to know that he once lived within the borders of
their state.
GEORGE TAYLOR PURCHASES ONE-FOURTH INTEREST IN
DURHAM IRON WORKS.
When Joseph Galloway allied himself to the British cause, he
was in 1778, attainted of treason. His large holdings of land in
Pennsylvania, which in addition to Durham, Trevose, Belmont
and elsewhere, including also the now celebrated Hog Island, were
seized and sold by the Commissioner of Forfeited Estates. An at-
tempt was then made to dispossess George Taylor of Durham,
but the Supreme Executive Council decided that he might remain
in possession until the first period of his lease had expired.
George Taylor was himself a member of the very first Supreme
Executive Council, which met daily in Philadelphia.^^ He did
not miss a single meeting from the date of its organization,
March 4, 1777, until prevented from attending by sickness.
The following is copy of a letter in the archives of the Penn-
sylvania Historical Society at Philadelphia :
Durham, May 24, 1777.
Sir —
I have been confined to my chamber for four weeks past by a violent
fever. I am just now beginning to walk about. You will please let
his Excellency the President know that as soon as my health will per-
mit I will attend the Council.
I am with great Respect &c.
To Timothy Matlack, Esqr. Sir, Your Most Humbl' Servt.
Geo. Taylor.
The Journal of the Moravian Society at Bethlehem, under date
10 Northampton County, Deed Book D, Vol. I, pp. 179 and 180.
II Colonial Records, First Series, Vol. XI, p. 173.
HOMES OF GEORGE TAYLOR 125
of July 10-11, 1776, states that there were elected five Germans
and three Irish farmers as delegates; these delegates appointed
the member of Congress, who in this instance was George Taylor.
In the PciDisylz'ania Magazine of History, Vol. IX, p. 279, James
Allen, a son of C. J. William Allen, says in his diary, under date
of February 17, 1777:
The Assembly have appointed Gen. Roberdeau, J. B. Smith, WilHam
Moore & reappointed R. Morris & Dr. Franklin Delegates in Congress
& left out G. Clymer, J. Wilson, J. Smith, G. Ross, Dr. Rush, G. Tay-
lor & J. Morton. The reason for leaving out so many old members, it
is said, is that the new light Presbyterian Party have the ascendant in
Assembly. The seven retiring members had all signed the Declaration
of Independence.
On July 22, 1777, Clymer was reappointed in the place of
William Moore, who had declined to serve, and James Wilson
was added to the delegation. The retiring of George Taylor as
a delegate to Congress, may have been the reason for his retiring
from the Supreme Executive Council, and not attending any
meetings after the above letter was written.
In 1779 the Commissioners of Forfeited Estates sold Gallo-
way's right in the Durham plant and real estate at public sale.
It was bought by four men, all colonels, Col. Richard Backhouse,
Col. George Taylor, Col. Isaac Sidman, of Easton, and Col.
Robert Lettis Hooper, Jr., who were equal partners. Most of the
account books of that administration fell into my hands and are
now in the library of the Bucks County Historical Society at
Doylestown. These original and authentic records, as well as the
public records contained in the Pennsylvania Archives, show
that shot and shells were made at Durham continuously, in large
quantities, throughout the entire period of the Revolutionary War.
The management of the Durham works, during this adminis-
tration, devolved upon Col. Backhouse, who was the ruling spirit
in that enterprise. He moved to Durham March 1, 1780, oc-
cupying the Mansion House heretofore referred to. At the
termination of his five year lease of Durham Furnace in 1779,
George Taylor was dispossessed by the Commissioner of For-
feited Estates, and then moved to Greenwich Township. New
Jersey, where he was operating the Greenwich Forge, owned by
Col. Hugh Hughes. He resided there until April, 1780, when he
moved to Easton. This is shown by his letter to Col. Backhouse,
126 HOMES OF GEORGE TAYLOR
dated April 9, 1780, the original of which is in the New York
State Library at Albany, and of which the following is a copy :
j~)^^^ 5j^ Greenwich 9th April 1780
I proposed coming over to Day but have a Bad Cold & the weather
unfavorable must Defer it until I move when Colo Hooper & I will
spend a Day with you — If you can spare a Gallon of Rum please to
send it by Tomm I expect some Waggons to morrow to Carry a part
of my Family if you want the half Dozn Chairs I shall Leave them
here for you I would save sent them by Snyder but was afraid they
might be hurt amongst the Iron & other things in his waggon
I am Dear Sir
To Richard Backhouse Yr. Ruble Servt
Durham Geo. Taylor
At Easton he made his home in this building where we are
assembled this afternoon. He occupied the house under lease
from the estate of John Hughes, Jr. It was buih by William
Parsons in 1753-54, and is said to be the oldest house in Easton,
and wherein P'arsons died December 22, 1757. The lot, at that
time (No. 176 on the original plan of Easton) was 60 feet
fronting on Hamilton (now Fourth) Street by 220 feet
on Ferry Street. The old engravings show that there was a
frame attachment to the stone house at that time. I will take
pleasure in presenting one of these old etchings to this Society.
Letters written by Geo. Taylor from Easton show that he kept a
horse and two cows. It is therefore likely that his stables were also
on that lot. There were doubtless also quarters for his slaves,
for while living here he kept two slaves, which under the law for
gradual abolition of slavery' in Pennsylvania, passed March 1,
1780, he was obliged to register in the office of the Clerk of Ses-
sions here at Easton. (See letter from George Taylor to Robert
Levers, published in Henry's History of the Lehigh Valley, p. 97.
This letter is now in possession of the Pennsylvania Historical
Society.)
At the sale of his personal effects, by his executors, negro Tom
32 years old, sold for 280 bushels of wheat, valued at £77 or
about $205, and Sam, also 32 years, a cripple, fetched but £15
or about $40. The inventory of his estate included four wigs, ap-
praised at il, but which "Mr. Levers thought improper to ex-
pose to sale."
It was here in this house, where we are assembled todav, that
126 HOMES OF GEORGE TAYLOR
dated April 9. 1780, the original of which is in the New York
State Library at Albany, and of which the following is a copy :
^ ^,. Greenwich 9th April 1780
Dear bir
I proposed coming over to Day but have a Bad Cold & the weather
unfavorable must Defer it until I move when Colo Hooper & I will
spend a Day with you — If you can spare a Gallon of Rum please to
send it by Tomm I expect some Waggons to morrow to Carry a part
of my Family if you want the half Dozn Chairs I shall Leave them
here for you I would save sent them by Snyder but was afraid they
might be hurt amongst the Iron & other things in his waggon
I am Dear Sir
To Richard Backhouse Yr. Huble Servt
Durham Geo. Taylor
At Easton he made his home in this building where we are
assembled this afternoon. He occupied the house under lease
from the estate of John Hughes, Jr. It was built by William
Parsons in 1753-54, and is said to be the oldest house in Easton,
and wherein Parsons died December 22, 1757. The lot, at that
time (No. 176 on the original plan of Easton) w^as 60 feet
fronting on Hamilton (now Fourth) Street by 220 feet
on Ferry Street. The old engravings show that there was a
frame attachment to the stone house at that time. I will take
pleasure in presenting one of these old etchings to this Society.
Letters written by Geo. Taylor from Easton show that he kept a
horse and two cows. It is therefore likely that his stables were also
on that lot. There were doubtless also quarters for his slaves,
for while living here he kept two slaves, which under the law for
gradual abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania, passed March 1,
1780, he was obliged to register in the office of the Clerk of Ses-
sions here at Easton. (See letter from George Taylor to Robert
Levers, published in Henry's History of the Lehigh Valley, p. 97.
This letter is now in possession of the Pennsylvania Historical
Society.)
At the sale of his personal effects, by his executors, negro Tom
32 years old, sold for 280 bushels of wheat, valued at £77 or
about $205, and Sam, also 32 years, a cripple, fetched but il5
or about $40. The inventory of his estate included four wigs, ap-
praised at il, but which "Mr. Levers thought improper to ex-
pose to sale."
It was here in this house, where we are assembled today, that
^/%ziyr^e.r^f/1^<^ ^-y-^/l^ //^ /^' nyAat-^Q /iyt<f^^'^-»-- //s^y^c^ y2^D c-n^. ^4^^ ^ ^''^'^ »" ^^-w/
CLOSING PARAGRAPH OP GEORGE TAYLORS WILL, FULL SIZE.
Dated January 6, 1781,. with his signature and signatures of witnesses.
(George Taylor died at Baston, February 23, 1781.)
TIOMKS OF (iKOKCP. TA^I.OR 127
Col. Taylor passed away February 23, 1781, having lived here
less than eleven months. This and the house at the northeast
corner of Northampton and Second Streets, heretofore referred
to. are the only houses in East on wherein George Taylor re-
sided. The original records of St. John's Lutheran Church,
across the way, record the date of his death, and also
the date of the passing of his son, James. These records would
be conclusive evidence in any court of law, and should set at rest
the date of Col. Taylor's death, for most historians say it was
on February 25. Col. Taylor's will, dated January 6, 1781, is
recorded here at Easton (Rook I, p. 275), but the original docu-
ment long since disappeared from the Recorder's ofifice, and is
now in the Archives of the New York Public Library, which
has kindly made for me this photostat of it, which I now
take pleasure in presenting to your Society. (An etching of the
last part of Geo. Taylor's will with his signature and signatures
of the three witnesses is shown herewith.) He appointed his
three friends, Robert Lettis Hooper, Jr., Robert Traill and Robert
Levers, as his executors. He gave to each of them a keepsake in
the following words :
"Unto the said Robert Levers my silver mounted double barrel gun,
to be engraved thus — The Gift of George Taylor, Esquire, and I like-
wise give and bequeath unto Robert Lettis Hooper, Jr., a neat silver
mounted small sword, to be engraved thus — In Memory of George
Taylor, Esquire, and unto the said Robert Traill I do give and be-
queath one pair of pistols. "'-
Col. Hooper did not qualify as an executor, although his name
appears as such in an advertisement, for settlement of the estate,
which they inserted in the Pcuiisylvania Ga:;cttc and Weekly Ad-
vertiser, for March 12, and April 4, 1781. Robert Levers
died May 1788, leaving Robert Traill as the sole executor when
the accounts were filed and audited in 1799, eighteen years
after Col. Taylor's death. The settlement of his partnership
accounts at Durham Iron Works were long drawn out, and on
final settlement of his estate it was found to be insolvent.'-'
12 These beautiful flint lock pistols are now owned by Dr. E. M. Green, a
frreat-grandson of Robert Traill, of Ea.ston. who has kindly allowed me to
photograph them to use as a tail piece to this paper.
i.-J Henry'.s History of the Lehigh Valley, p. 97, and the rejjort of auditors
on file in the courthou.se at Easton.
128
ITOMES OF GEORGE TAYLOR
COL. RODERT LETTIS HOOPER, JR.
Col. Robert Lettis Hooper, Jr., was a man of more than ordi-
nary parts. During the Revolutionary War he at first lived in
Lower Saucon Township,^ "* but later, while filling the office of
Deputy Quarter Master General, he lived in Easton, making his
home in the stone house, still standing, at the northwest corner
of Northampton and Fifth Streets. His first wife died while
living in that house. You have, of course, noticed the exterior
steps leading to the second story, as shown by the etching below.
Col. Hooper died at Trenton. X. J.. July 30, 1797, in the sixty-
sixth year of his age.
HOME OF ROBERT LETTIS HOOPER, JR.
EASTON, PA.
INIany letters written by Col. Hooper fell into my hands, most
of which I gave to the Bucks County Historical Society. One of
special interest I presented to Mrs.Abram S.Hewit (a daughter
of Peter Cooper), who had it framed and hung in the hall of
Ringwood Manor, her country home. That letter, addressed to
Richard Backhouse is so interesting that I will read it as follows :
14 See his letter published in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History, Vol.
XXIV, p. 3;tl, wherein he says his hnme is in Saucon, five miles south of
Bethlehem.
HOMES OF GEORGE TAYLOR 129
Ringwood, Septemr. 7th. 1781.
Sir:
I have long wished to visit you but my worthy friend, I have been
too much engaged. I must not trifle with you & in plain truth I have
been hunting a wife. I am sure among all my numerous acquaintances
there is not one that esteems me more than you do, and I love you with
the genuine warmth of true friendship — You, then, Dear Sir, must be
pleased when I tell you that I am engaged to Mrs. Erskine, a lady
high in estimation for her good sense, affability and sweetness of Tem-
per & blessed withall with a plentiful fortune. I assure you that I do
on the most deliberate principles of honor think that comfort and
felicity will attend the choice I have made.
I am very anxious to see and converse with you on these important
matters, which I cannot commit to writing, and if I can't see you next
week I can't meet you this fall. If therefore this finds you at home I
request you'll do me the favour to meet me at my house next Wednes-
day or Thursday when I will be at home. I am sure you'll come if you
can, the business will be short and I cannot come to you.
********
My compliments wates on Mrs. Backhouse — accept my wishes for
your prosperity and believe me,
To Richard Backhouse, Esqr. Dr. Sir Yr Friend & Humble Sv.
Durham R. L. Hooper, Jr.
(His marriage license was issued October 31, 1781. — See N. J.
Archives, Vol. 22, page 185.)
The Marquis de Chastellux who stopped at Ringwood Furnace
December 19, 1789, and called upon Mrs. Erskine, says:
"I entered a very handsome house where everybody was in mourn-
ing. Mr. Erskine bein^ dead two months before. Mrs. Erskine his
widow is about forty, and did not appear the less fresh or tranquil for
her misfortune."
Robert Erskine, whose charming widow Col. Hooper was to
marry, was sent over from England by the London Company, in
1771, to superintend their iron mines. He Hes buried on the Ring-
wood estate, which he was operating during the war. A marker
erected by the Government contains this inscription :
"In Memory of Robert Erskine, F. R. S.
Geographer and Surveyor General to the Army of the
United States.
Son of Rev. Ralph Erskine, late Minister at Dunfermline,
IN Scotland.
Born September 7, 1735. Died October 2, 1780
Aged 45 years and 25 days.
130 HOMES OF GEORGE TAYLOR
This monument is an object of interest to the Hewitt family
and their guests. One of the Hewitt boys is named Erskine in
memory of this man. It is quite a coincidence that in after years
Messrs. Cooper & Hewitt should, at the same time, own both
Ringwood and Durham properties, both established in early Co-
lonial times. A splendid biographical notice of Col. Hooper is
contained in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History, Vol 36, p.
60 et seq.
Another letter from Col. Hooper to his friend Col. Backhouse,
refers to his purchase of a large tract of land in the Genesee
country, the land of the Six Nations, on the Susquehanna River
in New York, which he called the "Land of Caanan." When
motoring through that interesting section last summer, I w^as
surprised to notice, on the road between Binghamton and Owego,
an automobile tire advertisement containing the following:
"When Binghamton was surveyed in 1786 by Col. Robert Lettis
Hooper, Jr., he lay in a canoe recording the distances from a pocket
compass, working in this way through fear of being shot by unfriendly
Indians."
James Wilson, a Signer of the Declaration of Independence,
Simeon DeWitt, Surveyor General of New York, and William
.Bingham, United States Senator, 1795 to 1801, were associated
with Col. Hooper in these Genesee lands, which seem to have
aggregated 30,620 acres, lying on both sides of the Susquehanna
River. When the lands were partitioned, that part which was to
become the site of Binghamton, N. Y., was apportioned to William
Bingham, for whom that city was named.
ROBERT TRAILL.
Robert Traill was a leading and influential citizen of Easton,
as one historian says,' "in every respect, he was for many years
everything to everybody." He was the ancestor of Dr. Edgar M.
Green and his sister, Mrs. Dr. Charles Mclntyre, who is present
with us here today. He was born in the Orkney Islands, Scot-
land, April 29, 1744, emigrated to America in 1763, died at
Easton July 31, 1816. In the early tax lists he is assessed as a
shoemaker.^^ Later he was a school teacher; member of the
15 See "History of Northampton County," published in 1873, where at page
73, a list of taxables is recorded.
GEORGE TAYLOR MONUMENT IN BASTON CEMETERY.
Erected to his memory in 1854. On April 20 1870 his body was removed
from the vard of St John's Lutheran Church, Easton Pa., and re-interiea
fmmediateb in front of this monument, which bears the followmg mscnption .
IN MEMORY OF
GEORGE TAYLOR
ONE OP THE SIGNERS
OF THE DECLARATION OF
\MFRICAN INDEPENDENCE.
JULY 4. A. D. 1776.
BORN 1716, DIED 1781.
HOMES OF GEORGE TAYLOR 131
Committee of Safety from Northampton County;^'' admitted to
the bar of Northampton County in 1777; Justice of the Peace,
1777-1781; Sheriff of Northampton County, 1781-1784; Repre-
sentative in the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, 1785-86;
member of the Supreme Executive Council, 1786-87 ; and an
Associate Judge of Northampton County, 1790-92. His body
lies buried in the Easton Cemetery.
ROBERT LEVERS.
Robert Levers, the other of Col. Taylor's executors, , was a
great and fearless patriot during the Revolutionary struggle. He
came to America from England in April, 1748. He taught school
for a time near Philadelphia, then associated himself with the
Moravians. Was associated with Mr. C. Brockden, Recorder of
Deeds at Philadelphia for three months. He writes "I then went
about 35 miles in the country to be a clerk at an iron works,
where I stayed about four months at i50 cy. a year." Still
later he was in the office of Richard Peters, whose partner he
became in some land deals in Northampton County, making his
home at Saylorsburg, where he also kept an hotel and store. He
was appointed Prothonotary and Clerk of the Orphans Court
for Northampton County, serving from 1777 to 1788. He was
the authorized agent of the Supreme Executive Council for
Easton and surrounding territory. On July 8, 1776, he gathered
the people together, in Centre Square at Easton, by ringing the
courthouse bell, and read to them, from the courthouse steps, the
Declaration of Independence. Might it not be in order for this
society or for the people of Easton, to place a monument to his
memory in Centre Square? When the British were about to
enter Philadelphia in 1777, and the capital of our new-born na-
tion transferred to Lancaster, Pa., the money, books and papers
of the Colonial Government were sent to him at Easton for
safe keeping. ^^ He stored them in his bedroom on the sec-
ond story of his house, which he rented from Conrad Ihrie.
Sr., located on the east side of South Third Street. Robert
16 Robert Traill was clerk of the Committee of Safety for Northampton
County; see Pennsylvania Archives, Eighth Series. Vol V, p. 4. Dr. Edward
M. Green has in his possession the original minutes kept by him.
17 See many references in Colonial Records, Vols. XI, XII, XIV, and XV.
also Pennsylvania Archives, First Series, Vols. V and VI. Also Pennsylvania
Magazine of History, Vol. I, p. 137.
132 HOMES OF GEORGE TAYLOR
Levers was in fact the local dictator of the new govern-
ment, reporting all cases of disloyalty or seeming disloyalty.
guarding the ferries over both rivers, and putting all suspects
under arrest. It was his duty to see that the Oath of Allegiance
was taken, particularly by former office holders. It was
through him that Hon. John Penn, then Governor for the
Proprietaries, former Lieutenant-Governor James Hamilton,
Assemblyman James Allen and Chief Justice Benjamin Chew
were put under parole. They were ordered by the Supreme Execu-
tive Council to be "imprisoned and removed from the state." It ap-
pears, however, that they were permitted to remain under parole
at the home of James Allen at Allentown. Later several of them
were removed to the Union Iron Works, near Clinton, N. J.,
owned by former Chief Justice William Allen and Joseph Turner.
Robert Levers died at Easton May 20, 1788, while holding the
position of Prothonotary. He left to survive him four children
and a widow nee Mary Church, who died in 1810.
GEORGE Taylor's death and burial.
A letter in the archives of the Bucks County Historical So-
ciety from Samuel Williams of Greenwich Forge, N. J., to
Richard Backhouse at Durham, bearing date February 22, 1781,
one day before George Taylor passed away, concludes as follows:
I was uf' at Easton when your Boy was over Taking wheat to Mr.
Taylor as he was always sending for money and I had none to give
him. But poor Owld gentlemen I believe his Dunning is allmost at an
End — I did not see him as he could not be Spoke with he has Been
Tapt Tw^ice the Doctor told me.
As already stated he died at Easton, February 23, 1781,
his body was laid at rest in the Lutheran churchyard across
the way, on the southeast corner of Fourth and Ferry Streets,
When the Belvidere Delaware Railroad, now part of the Pennsyl-
vania system, was extended to Phillipsburg in 1854, the event was
celebrated on February 3d of that year, with a grand entertainment
and reception by the citizens of Eastoli and Phillipsburg, for
which a large amount of money had been subscribed. A special
train of fifteen cars started from Philadelphia, carrying officials
and guests from that city, and from Trenton and other points,
which included the Governor of New Jersey and the heads of de-
HOMES OF GEORGE TAYLOR
133
partments, and many other distinguished citizens.^- The money
subscribed for that entertainment, which included a grand ball in
the evening, was not all used, and at the suggestion of Judge
James M. Porter, the balance was expended to erect, in the
Easton Cemetery, that beautiful Italian marble monument to the
memory of George Taylor.^'* His body, however, was allowed to
remain in the Lutheran churchyard until the Easton school-board
purchased that corner from St. John's Lutheran Church, when
on April 30, 1870, it was removed to the Easton Cemetery and
deposited in its last resting place on the east side of the monu-
ment.-*^* The school-board still further honored his memory by
naming that schoolhouse "The Taylor Building."
I wish, for the sake of this patriotic Society, that I could arrive
at a different conclusion, but the fact remains that the preponder-
ance of evidence shows that George Taylor was a resident of
Durham Township, in Bucks County, when on August 2, 1776. he
affixed his signature to that immortal document the Declaration
of Independence.
18 See Henry's History of the Lehigh Valley, ]
19 Recollections of B. F. Facltenthal, Sr., Esq.
20 Official Records of the Easton Cemetery.
p. 151 to 157.
(b. 1825, d. 1892).
Flint lock pistols which George Taylor bequeathed to Robert Traill.
Now in possession of Dr. Edgar M. Green of Easton, Pa.
Bucks County Women in Wartime.
BY MRS. MARY HEATON, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Cuttalossa Valley Meeting, June 15, 1918.)
TO say that war has been held in abhorrence by women in
all ages, goes without saying. It is equally true that they
have ever born the heroic and selfsacrificing part, and our
Bucks county women have been no exception.
Any effort to chronicle the heroic work done by our women of
1776 and 1861, is hampered by the absence of specific records of
their loyal services, except in a few localities in our county dur-
ing the Civil War. Although Bucks county produced no Lydia
Darrochs or Mollie Pitchers, we are convinced that her women
were zealous and untiring in rendering aid and comfort to the
sick, wounded and weary soldiers. While history has not classi-
fied any battle as having been fought within the borders of Bucks
county during the Revolution, the battle of Crooked Billet at or
near what is now Hatboro, Montgomery county, was waged so
near the county-line that the ragged edges extended within our
borders, and moreover Bucks county suffered heavily from forag-
ing raids, and vast numbers of wounded soldiers were cared for
m our county. Both Buckingham and Plumstead Meeting-houses
were used as hospitals and numbers of wounded and sick sol-
diers were cared for in private homes, where they were nursed
back to health or their last hours soothed by the ministering care
of our loyal Bucks county women.
We also have abundant evidence that during the Civil War
the women of Solebury, Buckingham, Durham and other town-
ships of Bucks, spent many weary hours in scraping lint, pre-
paring bandages and clothing for the soldiers, as well as to pro-
vide them with special articles of food. But few of the active
participants are left to tell us in detail of this noble work, and in
the brief time allowed to the preparation of this paper, it was im-
possible to get in touch with those people, now aged, who could
give a clear account of the work in their localities. We must
therefore rely upon such information and such records as are
available, and if I have given more prominence to one locality
BUCKS COUNTY WOMEN IN WAR TIME 135
than to another, it is simply for the reason given, and not that
those omitted were less loyal or industrious.
We will first show that relief work done by women during the
Revolution was well organized by naming a few of the more im-
portant leaders and the kind of work they were connected with.
Rebecca Lyon Armstrong was the first women to organize a
society in Pennsylvania. She led the women of Carlisle into ac-
tive assistance in clothing Washington's army, supplying also
many other comforts.
Sarah Nelson McAllister of Juniata county, organized the first
women's agricultural society. She went from farm to farm tell-
ing the women that if they did not plow and sow they would
starve, as their husbands would not be home in time for the
work. Washington's soldiers did not reach home until Decem-
ber, and they would have been in want, as many of the settle-
ments were very short of food.
Elizabeth Porter, residing near Philadelphia, formed a society
for weaving and making soldier's clothing, for it is well known
many were in rags. Even the ofiicers' clothing had become very
shabby, and being out of cloth they ripped their coats apart,
washed them, and turned them inside out. and they looked so
well that it was often remarked, "Oh yes, he has a turned
coat on."
In order that Washington's armies might be better fed and
clothed the ladies not only devoted much time to cloth and gar-
ment making but practiced many economies as well, as may be
seen from one of Sarah Mifflin's letters which says :
"I have retrenched in my expenses, for both my table and family.
Tea I have not drank since Christmas, nor bought a new gown or cap
since the affair at Lexington; and what I never did before, have learned
to knit, making socks for the soldiers."
The cloth used at that time was probably what was called
oznaburg — a mixture of flax and tow- — which followed the buck-
skin of the pioneers. A woolen cloth called linsey-woolsey was
woven also. Tailors and dressmakers went from house to house
making clothes for the well-to-do families. In later times men
operated the larger cloth weaving looms but women continued
to make the linen.
In the neighborhood of encampments the women workers were
naturally still more active, the need being near at hand ; so we
136 BUCKS COUNTY WOMEN IN WAR TIME
learn that while Washington's army was encamped on Carr's' Hill,
near Hartsville, the women wove, cut and made garments by
day, spinning and knitting by firelight in the evenings.
The gristmills of this vicinity were then grinding day and
night — mostly corn, this being the most plentiful grain. The
British in Philadelphia and the tories through the country did
much to hinder the feeding of our armies. They so drained the
country of luxuries that only the simplest foods were left ; their
common diet was milk, bread and pie for breakfast ; meal, pork
or bacon with a wheat pudding and molasses for dinner; mush
or hominy, with milk, butter and honey for supper.
Previous to the battle of Trenton Washington was quartered
at Keith Farm, situate at the foot of Jerico Mountain, two miles
from the place where he and his army crossed the Delaware.
On the night of the battle, when they arrived on the Jersey side
of the river, the family of John Norton (who owned a farm on
the river bank, where the city of Trenton now stands), cooked
and baked all night to feed Washington and his men. They used
everything eatable on the place and then only a part was fed.
Mrs. Emeline P. Newbold, who now resides in Langhorne, is a
descendent of the family of John Norton.
Then as now the women nursed the sick and wounded soldiers,
and as the armies were comparatively small they were often
quartered in private houses and various other buildings.
Directly following the battle of Brandywine in 1777, the Con-
tinentals sent orderlies ahead of their army to find winter quar-
ters for the officers and men. Langhorne, which was then Four
Lanes End, was selected and the officers were quartered in the
home of Joshua and Sarah Richardson, a large stone house at
the intersection of the lanes. This house is still standing and in
good condition. The house opposite, a large brick dwelling owned
and occupied by Gilbert Hicks, a tory, was confiscated by the
government and used throughout their stay as a hospital, whicH
before the long winter months were over was badly needed, as
army fever broke out among the man, and many were sick and
many died. The Friends Meeting-house was used as a sleeping
and living quarters for the privates, and in the southern end of
the burying ground lie hundreds of their bodies.
Lafayette, who was wounded at the battle of Brandywine,
BUCKS COUNTY WOMEN IN WAR TIME 137
Sept. 11, 1777, came to Four Lanes End by way of Bristol en-
route for Bethlehem, and stayed at the Richardson house for
several days rest before continuing his journey. In September
1824, when as the nation's guest Lafayette again visited this
country, on his way from New York to Philadelphia, he stopped
at Bristol, and was there introduced to many persons, including
Mrs. Bassonett, who had nursed him after he was wounded in
the battle of Brandywine.
During the Civil \\"ar the women of this neighborhood seem
to have been quite active. There was a society formed at Lang-
horne to care for the soldiers called The Ladies' Aid, Langhorne
then being known as Attleboro. This society held an all-day
meeting every Wednesday in the townhall over Dr. Pemberton
Minster's drug store on Maple avenue. There was a long table
in the room about which the ladies gathered to scrape lint and
cut and sew garments for the soldiers in the field and hospitals.
They knitted, canned, baked and did what the Red Cross of to-
day is doing. At that time communities had their own regiments
and the ladies worked for them, often driving in carriages to
camps and hospitals with clothing and food they had made and
prepared. They raised money in various ways to carry on this
work. At one "fair" they had a large tree filled with gifts which
were chanced off at ten cents a chance. Dr. Minster drew a doll.
He having been long married and no children this caused much
merriment, and this doll, which they named "Flora," remained
in the family until about a year ago.
Those active in the town war work were x\nnie Watson, Jane
Wildman, Lizzie, Rebecca and Jane Swartzlander, Rachel Min-
ster, Anna Richardson, Effie File, Tacy and Anna Mather, Lizzie
Comfort, Mary J. Richardson, Susanna and Maryann Palmer.
At the Palmer farm many bottles of cherry syrup were made and
sent to the hospitals. Annie W^atson (mother of Henry W. Wat-
son, our representative in Congress), started the sewing upon the
immense Attleboro flag, which was made by the ladies in the
work room. It is still in existence and has figured in all the po-
litical parades of the town. Until the time of his death Dr.
Minster took charge of the flag in his own home, but a short
time ago, battered and torn, it was seen floating from the window
of the Odd Fellows' Hall, its present home.
138 BUCKS COUNTY WOMEN IN WAR TIME
The great Sanitary Fair of Philadelphia was held under the
auspices of the Sanitary Commission of Pennsylvania, New Jer-
sey and Delaware, it being intended as a means of adding to the
fund for the use of the sick and wounded of the army and navy
engaged in the Civil War. The commission built an enormous
temporary building covering Logan square, and there the fair
was opened with appropriate ceremonies on June 7, 1864, in the
presence of Governor Curtin, of Pennsylvania ; Governor Paker,
of New Jersey, and Governor Cannon, of Delaware. The con-
tributions of money and articles for display and sale were gen-
erous and the sale was such a success that when it closed on
June 28th, it had realized for the commission over $1,080,000.
Thousands of people attended daily and the crowd was especial-
ly large on June 16th, when President and Mrs. Lincoln paid it
a visit. The president signed his name to printed copies of the
Emancipation Proclamation, which were sold, those that were
preserved are today of great value.
The women of Bucks county took a great interest in this fair
and it is said that wagons filled with visitors and contributors
made almost a continuous procession on the York Pike. Mrs.
Henry Darlington and Miss Irene Henry were the Doylestown
collectors for this fare.
The "Cooper Shop Refreshment Saloon" was established at
Front and Washington streets, Philadelphia, for the purpose of
feeding soldiers passing through the city on their way south.
Mrs. Halsey Gibbs and Mrs. Josiah Hart collected provisions in
this neighborhood for the Cooper Shop and some of their ex-
periences were interesting. They used a two-seated carriage with
the rear seat removed for their trips through the country, putting
contributions in back. On one of their excursions they noticed
a churn at a springhouse and guessed that batter making had
just been finished. The farmer tried to put them oflf by saying
that it had not yet been printed, but they said they would be glad
to wait until that was done. After waiting quite a long while
the farmer said to his wife that they might as well print the but-
ter and give some or the ladies would stay for supper. An an-
other farm house, the collectors suggested a few chickens as a
contribution. The farmer "had no time to pick chickens," but
one of the ladies said, "Oh, never mind about picking, just cut
BUCKS COUNTY WOMEN IN WAR TIME 139
their heads off and put them in the carriage." And they got the
chickens. On their return one of the husbands said he expected
to see them driving in a cow the next time. On one occasion a
boy was talking earnestly to his mother, who was getting some
things ready for the Cooper Shop carriage. The mother, laugh-
ing, said, "He wants to know if he can't give his banty chicken
for the soldiers, why it wouldn't make a mouthful." But the
banty was accepted and sold at auction, bringing quite a sum.
Miss Anna Widdefield, who lived on a farm near Bridge Point,
and who had three brothers in the army, helped every day at the
Cooper Shop. Mr. Howard Magill tells me that every year on
Memorial Day our local G. A. R. Post decorates her grave.
The Ladies' Aid Society of Warminster was organized at the
home of Margaret H. Twining in December, 1861, by Hannah
C. Davis, Elizabeth T. Kirk, Anna Twining, Martha Davis,
Rachel Wynkoop, Rebecca R. Twining, and others, who had been
meeting as a Literary Society previovis to the outbreak of the
Civil War. From the time of organization until June, 1865,
this society met on W^ednesday of each week. In all this time
there was never a meeting omitted because of storm or bad travel-
ing, although at no time was the membership greater than forty.
The first meetings were held in a room of Charles Kirk's wagon
house. After September, 1863, the Warminster Friend's Meet-
ing-house was always the place of meeting until the close of the
society. In order to procure funds each members gave a month-
ly contribution of ten cents and collected all manner of contri-
butions from friends and acquaintances. This soon proved in-
sufficient, and therefore mass meetings, fairs, strawberry festi-
vals, lectures and entertainments were resorted to raise funds.
The following is the last paragraph of the final report of the
society prepared by the corresponding secretary, Mrs. Mary D.
Jarrett :
"In the summer of 1864, a hospital being established at College Wharf,
near Bristol, called Whithall, to which some eight or ten hundred men,
very weak and sick, were sent, unprepared for, — a call was made in the
surrounding country, for supplies and assistance, to which we re-
sponded by sending a large committee with a large quantity of refresh-
ments and substantial, of which the greater part of the hungry boys
partook to their full enjoyment. It was, indeed, a great pleasure to
witness the eagerness with which they received the morsel of bread
140 BUCKS COUNTY WOMEN IN WAR TIME
and butter, a cup of boiled milk, cooked fruit, pickles, etc., as we seem
to have been favored with a variety of edibles suitable for the different
cases. Some time having elapsed before the place became fully organ-
ized, and fresh arrivals of the sick almost daily coming in, it was sug-
gested that a committee from the different Aids should be sent to
assist in waiting upon, and preparing sick dishes for the poor emaciated
men. We united with the suggestion, and our worthy President, (then
Mary M. Carr) in company with a lady from the Hartsville Aid (Mrs.
Nicolas) volunteered to spend a week near the hospital, in preparing
dainties for the very sick, and acting the part of mothers, in various
ways, to many poor creatures whose lives have not been spared to ack-
nowledge their kind attentions. And oh, how many 'God bless you,
ladies!' 'Thank you, ladies!' etc., have been uttered by the poor sick
and wounded men, as they would pass through the wards with some-
thing to tempt the appetite or some pleasant drink t(^ moisten the
fevered lips, and the tears of thankfulness flowed on man_v a sun-burned
cheek in appreciation of their tender sympathy. We have also visited
Nicetown Hospital, and assisted the Penn Relief in getting up a
Thanksgiving dinner, and at another time a Thanksgiving supper.
Here, too, we have been made to rejoice, seeing our ladies so greatly
appreciated b\" the poor stricken ones who have been made to suffer,
bv a rebellious foe, for our mother country's sake."
Historical Reminiscences of the Cuttalossa Creek in Solebury
Township.
BY THADDEUS S. KENDERDINE, NEWTON, PA.
(Cuttalossa Valley Meeting, June, 15, 1918.)
THE Cuttalossa is a small stream, not more than three miles
long from its source in the western part of Solebury town-
ship, to w^iere after a winding course it enters the Delaware
river at Lumberton, about half way between Easton and Tren-
ton, and now in volumne but a weak stream, though, before the
deforestation of its valley, it was of milling capacity. As I first
knew the creek nearly four score years ago its lower course
flowed through a forest primeval, no wagon road followed its
course, although there was an old one laid out on high ground
overlooking the stream and crossing it but once. Now there is a
road through the valley which crosses the creek five times. The
creek starts from two springs on the line of the Street road, and
meanders along the margins of pleasant meadows, it then skirts
a piece of woodland and then after a short distance of open
country, it dives into a mile of second growth timber whose
ancestral trees shadowed the creek all the way to the Delaware.
At first it flows northeasterly, then to the north and then turns
again to the northeast until it empties into the Delaware river.
It is one of the minor streams of the county, a score of others
perhaps exceeding it in volume, and yet there was enough in its
connection, human and scenic, its people, mills, trees, shrubbery,
ferns and flora to create a pamphlet of eighty-nine pages from
that gatherer of local historic matter, William J. Buck. As to
the humanity living in or near the valley, there were none more
noted than Capt. Pike and his son. General Zebulon M. Pike (Dis-
coverer of Pike's Peak), and the poet, John G. Whittier. The
names of this trio alone should make the Cuttalossa a stream of
personal note. Historian Buck, locally an alien, has done more
in the way of research to hunt up matters relative to the Cut-
talossa Valley than all its residents combined.
The spelling of the name of the creek is now established as I
have given it. The original spelling however was Quatalosse,
142 HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK
which was the name of the Armitage gristmill, as stencilled on
the grain bags belonging to Henry Armitage, who owned it with-
in my recollection. Skudalosa was another name following that.
Among other titles found in old deeds it was called Quetilassie
and Scuttlaushe. but both Davis and Buck, after investigation,
have established Cuttalossa as the correct spelling.
The first gristmill on the stream was built by Samuel Armitage,
who came from Wakefield, England, in 1738, and settled in
Solebury before 1747. A date on the gable end of the mill, 1752,
indicates that it was built that year. A few years later a saw-
mill was built, and by 1780 a plaster mill was also in operation.
The gristmill, run by an overshot water wheel, remains as it was
170 years ago, except for an addition made in 1823. It is now
owned by an Armitage, and has been in that family name, except
for a hiatus of forty years when the names of Good, Hutchinson
and Fries were connected with its ownership. The present owner
is Amos Armitage, the third of that name in title, who bought
the property about 1905. Like all old mills of the kind, its busi-
ness is much diminished, but when there is water enough to
operate, the old wheel still plods its solemn rounds and the
rumbling stones go their whirling.
In 1916, when on a visit to my old home, I stopped at the
Armitage mill, whose inside I had not seen for a half century.
Business was slack and the works idle, but not its "dusty," for
we found Amos 3d, fixing up a sawmill (for a circular saw) for
working up logs suitable for its size. He was doing all the work
himself, for he was a "Jack of all trades," being a worker in both
wood and iron. He had hewn the log carriage out of one piece
of timber and was ripping it by hand in two parts, like the old
mode before the days of sawmills. Around him were wooden
cogwheels and pulleys, showing his handiwork and confidence
in the future of the mill. His children were all girls, and I
could not look upon him without interest, as being the sole male
representative of the Armitages that I had known or heard of
in the 175 years who had lived and died along the waters of
the Cuttalossa. I thought there must have been some sentiment
in his nature, else he would not have left his ancestral farm, that
of his grandfather, Amos, 2nd, to cast his lot with this old mill.
I would like to have seen the old mill running, as I had in the
HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK 143
long ago, but with no grist to grind and a scarcity of water I
could not ask Amos to leave his congenial work to start it up
for my pleasure. Through the generations of Armitages, Samuel.
John, Henry and Jesse, the old mill had gone on, and let us hope
that Amos will make a success of his undertaking.
The first gristmill in Solebury township, was built in 1707 at
the "Great Spring," the most natural place to start one because
of the abundance of water, and with no danger of the water-
wheel freezing, for with full volume the water came forth at a
temperature defying ice. Hither came farmers from up-country,
where as yet no mills had been built, bringing their grists of rye,
wheat and buckwheat, by cart or on horseback down the Sugan
road, the first highway leading north from that section. When
the Armitage mill was erected in 1752 on that highway, it great-
ly interfered with the trade of the mill at Great Spring. John
Armitage, son of Samuel, succeeded him in the conduct of the
mill. He was familiarly known as "Batchelor John," or as
"Uncle." When up-country mills were built the Armitage trade
in its turn was interfered with, as the people would naturally pat-
ronize the nearest mill. These old-time millers would, when able,
grind the grists while the far-away farmers waited, and give
them their dinners at noon time, for such was the hospitality of
those good old times. We can well say that these "dusties" never
dipped the toll dish but once, with fear that the boss miller or
apprentice might forget the service. Henry was an elder in our
Friends Meeting, and I have seen his plain hat and coat dusted
with flour, but not at meeting.
The next gristmill was built at the mouth of the Cuttalossa
creek some time before 1758 in connection with a sawmill, but
being in the way of the construction of the canal, about 1830,
both were put out of use to make way for it. To replace these
a second set of mills was built by John Gillingham, grandfather
of the late Mayor Ashbridge, of Philadelphia, brother of Benja-
min who lived and died in Lahaska, and an uncle, I believe, to
the late J. Gillingham Fell, whose father was William Fell, who
married a daughter of John Gillingham. The demolished grist-
mill was in its time of historic interest in connection with the
death of Moses Doane, for whose capture a reward was oflfered.
A boy coming there with a grist of wheat told the miller that
144 HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK
the Doanes were at their house and that the flour was badly
wanted. There was such a suggestion from this that the miller
promptly complied, and when the grain was ground, went at once
to where a public sale was being held, nearby, and notifying the
assemblage there, a posse was soon created, and hastening to the
Horsley place, on Cabin run in Bedminster township, whence the
boy came, and where the Doanes were harbored. One of the
party shot the leader of the outlaws, after he had surrendered,
which was considered a dishonorable act, the rest escaping in
the confusion, the officer of the law, leading the posse, Major
Kennedy, getting killed in the melee. As a punishment for har-
boring his country's enemies, Horsley, besides being jailed at
Newtown for six months, was burned in the hand !
John E. Kenderdine, who in 1833 had bought the Lumberton
property, known heretofore from the names of the Delaware river
ferry owners, Rose, Kugler, Hart and Painter, but latterly, from
the frequent visits of the sheriff as "Hard Times," along with
twenty acres of land, made a second replacement of the mills,
one on each side of the creek. It is here worthy of mention that
the purchaser, being a practical millwright, had gotten out the
machinery for the gristmill the winter before he moved to Lum-
berton from his Montgomery county home, and that the car-
riage-way of the sawmill was partly supplied from a wooden
endless chain which had been used for a tread-power, on which
oxen worked, at an experimental gristmill established in one end
of the large dwelling house in which he lived, but which was a
failure, for the good reason that the motive power ate up all the
toll. The idea for this method of propulsion was obtained from
early western settlers, where feed was cheap and economy in
machinery necessary. It is recorded that the endless chain was
the first to inaugurate the more practical horse-powers soon to
be built for driving threshing machines. It was curiously con-
structed, with rollers and hinge joints, made from the hardest
wood necessarily strong from having to sustain the weight of two
heavy oxen. I well remember seeing unusued sections of the
chain lying overhead in the sawmill.
The gristmill dam formed a basin for logs for the sawmill.
I have seen 200,000 feet of them floating there at one time. To
see the weeds and thicket-grown waste now covering the site of
HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK 145
this pond, one can scarcely realize the changed conditions. Later
the two operations were separated, the sawmill being removed to
a location two hundred yards further up the stream, and on the
opposite side thereof. The new and head race dug for this saw-
mill has gradually over the past forty years, filled up, and the
investment has become lost.
The next water-power to be improved along the Cuttalossa
was a sawmill built in 1849 by John E. Kenderdine, about one-
third of a mile from the river. The place was called Laurelton,
so named on account of the rhododendrons growing in the woods
at that place. In 1852 a floorboard working machine was added,
which theretofore had been attached to the gristmill at the river
and run by means of a shaft spanning the creek. Starting this
enterprise involved a patent on the "Woodward planing machine,"
a late invention, which with swiftly revolving knives worked the
surfaces and edges of parallel-sawn boards. For supplying the
counties of Bucks and Hunterdon (in New Jersey) one dollar
per thousand feet had to be paid to the holder of the patent right,
one George B. Sloat, of Philadelphia, a brother to Commodore
Sloat, of the United States Navy, and much connected with the
capture of Upper California at the time of the Mexican war.
This machinery brought out the enmity of neighboring carpenters,
who claimed that it was robbing them of their work, so that they
threatened a boycott by influencing their patrons to buy their
lumber of rival dealers. A day's work for a carpenter in work-
ing and laying flooring was one hundred superficial feet, while a
machine at that time would plane, tongue and groove three thou-
sand. Much of this hand work was done in the winter time
when cheap apprentice labor could be used, so it was no wonder
the boss carpenters kicked at an innovation which they claimed
took the bread from the mouths of their wives and children.
But their employers had something to say to this, and such hand
work entirely ceased. This investment of my father's, how-
ever, turned out a poor one, for despite the patent protection,
flooring was placed in the cities and lumber regions by improved
machinery which could produce three times as fast as he could,
and which was retailed by local dealers despite the patent.
In 1854 a sash and door factory was added to the flooring mill,
which further annoyed the boss carpenters, as more robbing them
146 HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK
of their work, but the outcome was the same as from the flooring
machine ; one of these kickers even starting a rival factory a mile
and a half away, which much interfered with our business. But
there was lots of work in those times in the late fifties for farmers
were doing well, building anew on their farms, or erecting re-
tiring homes in nearby villages where they might live with their
families comfortably to the end of their days. As many as a
dozen hands were employed in and around our factory making
inside housework, so there was quite a stir in the now deserted
valley of the Cuttalossa. A mill for grinding bones was added in
1864, and two years later machinery was put in for making mixed
fertilizers, taking the room of the disused sawmill, so for many
years there was plenty of business around this section.
In 1854 Charles P. Large and Isaac Corson built another saw-
mill, locating it about a mile further up the stream, in the heart
of the wilderness, but which the wagon road had opened up. In
the nearby woods they cut chestnut and oak timber which they
sawed into railroad ties for the branch road built from Lansdale
to Doylestown, a branch of the North Penn (now Reading)
railroad. These ties were hauled a distance of nine miles with
an ox team by George, son of Theodore Dudbridge, who had
lately moved into the neighborhood, one of the few men recon-
ciled to this slow travel. One round trip was considered a day's
work. For twenty years thereafter much hard wood was sawed
here from logs cut from far and near, the rivings shipped to
Atlantic coast cities and even as far as California. About 1873
the mill was bought by Cephas Worthington who added a rake
and handle factory thereto, but his venture failed financially.
Later purchasers were Robert Lear and the Kemble Brothers
from the Lumberton quarries, one brother, William H. Kemble
of Philadelphia, dying, his brother allowed the property to stand
idle, until a violent flood, coming in 1885, so thoroughly destroyed
both dam and mill that they were never rebuilt. The sawyer's
home deserted, its doors open and windows all broken, would
have been a night lodging place for tramps, did such gentry so
far forget themselves as to wander into this wilderness. In like
manner the nearby tenant house, where lived for years a run-
away slave called "Black Charley" and his wife or woman,
"Black Maria." Charley always kept an axe on hand for brain-
HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK 147
ing his late owner should he come to take him from his wilder-
ness home. Maria was a wicked looking woman, and would
have willingly helped her man in his work. With desolation all
around the once humanity all dead, I wonder if its ghosts, "re-
visiting the pale glimpses of the moon," ever in their walks
abroad startle the owls and bats from their haunts.
After reading my description of the improvements once along
the Cuttalossa, no one having pathos of sympathy can wonder at
my feelings when seeing the solitude wrought by time and changed
conditions of business there. Where turned the various mills, with
their accessories, not only all is silence, but the buildings which
gave forth their noises are, with one exception, so gone that
nothing but bare walls are seen or well nigh hidden by bushes
and tree growths, where once disturbed nature is having her re-
venges. Half of my long life was passed among these scenes,
where much of the time conditions were at their liveliest, and
where in my early days all with a wilderness, whose reclamation
was to be so wonderful ; so it is not strange that when I visit these
deserted places that I experience sickness of heart. Along the
valley road, once so lively with carriage and business travel, one
now scarcely sees a pleasure vehicle or heavy wagon, while road-
side vegetation is encroaching more and more on the right-of-
way. This road, the easiest one inland from the river from be-
low Yardley to Easton, was allowed from the courts with diffi-
culty, as so few people were interested besides my father, and
the township taxpayers objecting through remonstrances; even
some of the original petitioners recanting. My father was par-
ticularly interested in having this road laid out, because of the
roundabout route and the hills which his customers had to take
to haul their lumber from the river, and he was greatly pleased
when he had accomplished his purpose.
THE VILLAGE OF LUMBERTON.
I have spoken of the mills built along the Cuttalossa and their
present abandoned and dilapidated condition, but have said
nothing about the little village of Lumberton at its mouth. There
was a settlement there before 1758, for in that year William Skel-
ton built a gristmill, and by 1770 a sawmill was added, which
in 1771 was owned by John Kugler. The gristmill was rebuilt
148 HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK
in 1781, when on account of Kugler getting into trouble for his
disloyalty, and to avoid his property from being confiscated he
sold it to George Warne. Kugler was however jailed at New-
town. His wife, who seemed to have been equally guilty was
also arrested and journeyed with him to the county-seat. George
Warne conveyed the property to John Hart, who appears to have
lived there, for during the Revolutionary War he was ferryman.
The tract after being increased to one hundred and twenty acres
by purchase of adjoining lands, was sold in 1795 to Jacob Painter
and Reuben Thorne. Painter appears to have run the ferry in
1793, when there was a "Painter's Ferry road." As late as 1818
there was a sign post due northwest of Center Hill stating the
way and distance to the ferry. This crossing must have been
established about the time, or before John Watson laid out the
road to Center Hill, or about 1756. Some have wondered why
the ferry was not established opposite Lumberville, where there
was a better road to country back of the river, but Bull's island
was in the way there, involving two ferriages, on account of an
intervening branch of the river. Doubtless there was a hotel at
Lumberton shortly after the Watson road was laid out, for this
highway was mainly for the convenience of Jersey farmers -going
to Philadelphia. There was a store and lumber yard by 1800.
In 1833 John E. Kenderdine, from Horsham, Montgomery
county, who was made acquainted with this business nook on the
Delaware shore from crossing the ferry at various times on his
visits to his future wife, Martha Quinby, who lived with her par-
ents, James and Margaret, on a large plantation on the Jersey hills
overlooking what was to be Lumberton, and seeing its induce-
ments, purchased the place. The then good water power of the
Cuttalossa, combined with the supply of saw timber annually
floating down the Delaware from its headwaters in New York
and northern Pennsylvania, together with the cheapness of the
property, were beckonings not easily avoided. The lately finished
canal furnishing transportation for the benefit of the merchant
mill he proposed building, was another important factor in the
buying of the place, so, in the named year, he bought of Joseph
Hough, administrator to the estate of Thomas Little, lately de-
ceased, for $1600 a tract of twenty acres, on which were the re-
mains of a sawmill and gristmill, a hotel and two dwelling houses,
HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK 149
one of them "the Old Red House," in which once Hved the two
Pikes — Captain Zebulon, the Revolutionary soldier, and his son,
General Zebulon Montgomery Pike, also a soldier, as well as a
noted explorer ; the latter to be killed in our last war with England
in a Canadian expedition, and who, when quite a lad, attended the
Center Hill school two miles away. One of these is yet standing,
a double dwelling, an end of which was the Camel tavern. The
hotel end has sentimental associations with me, for here my par-
ents first lived when coming to Bucks county, where I com-
menced housekeeping in 1863, and where two of our children
were born ; and now the whole building is a pitiful wreck. A two-
storied veranda once fronted it, which was torn down piecemeal
by quarrymen tenants and burned for firewood.
The "House on the Hill," the first new residence built in the
new-named village, was erected in 1837 and here John E. Kinder-
dine lived until 1855, when he moved to the newly built "Laurel-
ton House" up the creek, and where he lived until his death in
1868. In 1869 the writer bought that property and lived there
till the fall of 1874, when he sold it and moved to Ambler, bidding
a final adieu to the valley of the Cuttalossa. The house changing
hands several times, it was finally burned down about 1903, and
the charred and partially wrecked walls for several years re-
mained a blot on the landscape. During this time it was sold
three times as junk, the knocked-down price being once but $70,
for what had cost as a whole $3000. The last owner razed the
upper walls till they were shedshaped, pitching one way and to-
wards the road, till the picturesque house of six gables, christened
the "Laurelton" by my brother Robert, was bungled to a bunga-
low. On the erection of this house, in 1855, when the walls were
a little above the second floor, Robert and I composed some
poetry, and with two newspapers made up a cornerstone filler, in-
serted it in a wooden box and had this walled in. I never ex-
pected to see the interned box again, but through some remarkable
contingencies the papers came into my possession, some of them
in tolerable good condition. My brother's poem, a remarkable
production for one about fifteen years of age, was printed in a
local paper and afterwards came out in book form.
The four families of Armitages who lived in the section of the
Cuttalossa around the upper water power were headed by Samuel,
150 HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK
John, Henry and Amos, all of whom in their generations have
long since passed away, and later their twenty-five children, and,
as before mentioned, but one male member of the name left, the
last, Amos, who owns the ancestral mill.
Tames, one of John Armitage's sons, married my aunt, Mary
Quinby, and died leaving two sons, James and Charles, the first
aged one year, the last three years. James died at sixteen, while
his brother lived to be old enough to die for his country in the
Civil War. Charles was a practicing lawyer at Phoenixville, when
the call to arms came, he enlisted in Company G, First Pennsyl-
vania Reserves. A writer of fiction, a ready debater and an ac-
complished orator, the latter talent used at war meetings to urge
recruiting, and, best of all, setting the example himself, so unlike
the many "go-boys" talkers, instead of being "come-boys," who
failed to fight as they spoke. I shall never forget his address
at a meeting called at my home town immediately after the
mobbing and death of the Massachusetts troops in Baltimore while
on their way for the defence of Washington. It was for the en-
listment of volunteers for the President's first call, and was full
of persuasive eloquence for recruits, and at the same time of con-
sideration for those who would have to make sacrifices to enlist.
Ex-Governor Pennypacker who was a fellow townsman of Ar-
mitage after he set up legal practice at Phoenixville, was pleased
to speak of him in his memoirs as "a slouchy, ill-trained man,
ignorant and good-natured," with the saving clause of "being a
great favorite and having been killed in action" — a mixed de-
scription, worthy of so mixed a character as was Pennypacker.
Charles Armitage was no scholar as the word goes, but he was a
great reader, his inclination being for military history, particular-
ly of the Napoleonic wars, the plans of which battles he would
draw on his slate. In local debating societies he was eminent as
a reasoner, and in the Lincoln campaign did good service as a
political orator. At his new home he wrote fictional tales for the
Phoenixville Independent. He was not killed in action but died
from exhaustion after the battle of Gettysburg, while on Mead's
pursuit of Lee, and was buried on the southern shore of the Po-
tomac. He was a good soldier with military bearing, as I learned
from one of his commanding officers. In one of the battles be-
fore Richmond he commanded his company. As one of the three
HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK 151
dwellers of the Cuttalossa valley who gave up their lives for
their country, he is worthy of local mention. The other two were
Robert Kenderdine and Thaddeus Paxson.
The Cuttalossa skirted or divided the lands of the Armitages,
going by that of Amos, and dividing those of Henry, John and
Samuel. Much of these properties consisted of a primeval forest,
dank and dark, the creek taking its lonely way under the shadow-
ing trees until 1852, when the public road was built.
John G. Whittier, the Amesbury poet, passed his summer va-
cations on the Healy farm between 1837 and 1840, and the farm-
house has since been referred to as the "Whittier House. "^ While
living there he wrote several of his published poems. The back
field of the Healy farm overlooks the Cuttalossa valley which is
thus referred to in a letter from him to William J. Buck in 1873.
"I well remember the little river, its woodlands and meadows,
and the junction of the Cuttalossa with the Delaware," showing
that Whittier, in his ramblings, must have honored Lumberton
with his visits. While at his literary work, at the home of Joseph
Healy, the poet, for exercise, between times either worked in the
garden or rambled over the country.
Down stream from the Armitage holdings came the Paxson
tract, extending in two ownerships to the river, in my time those
of Moses and Howard, wherein there were two hundred acres of
woods, backed by fertile farm lands. These were descendants of
Henry Paxson, to whom the sons of William Penn deeded the
land, and who came from England in 1682, and who at once ac-
quired five hundred acres and afterwards more in another sec-
tion. In my recollection Moses Paxson, or rather his estate,
owned the first section below the Armitages', his widow, "Aunt
Salley," living on the homestead, and renting the farm. The
woodland, amounting to near one hundred acres, was a part of a
forest three miles by a half mile in places in area, extending along
the river hills from above Center Bridge to below Lumberville.
In my memory this wilderness was a section for fishing, hunting
game and lost cows — my boyhood experience going back to all
these — fishing, carrying game bag for my Nimrod brother and
1 At the conclusion of the Cuttalossa Valley Meeting, Mr. Daniel Garber,
the noted painter, who has a studio in the valley near where the meeting
was held, presented to the Bucks County Historical Society a large painting
of the Healy-W^hittier house, which now hangs on the walls of the museum
at Doylestown.
152 HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK
seeking wandering members of our little dairy, mainly confined
to the Cuttalossa valley. In hunting stock, particularly at night-
fall, I found the job lonely and mixed with some terror, for
imagination would run wild in conceiving strange sounds and
moving objects. The timber belonging to the estate of Moses
Paxson was cut off after the widow's death, my father buying
part and exchanging much of the wood thereon for land cut ofif
by other purchasers. This he cleared, and it being added to his
original twenty acres of tillable land, made quite a farm, some
sixty acres in all, with the mill property on the river side. On
the lower edge of the Moses Paxson tract he built the Laurelton
mills and the dwelling house in which he ended his days, which I
afterwards owned. The highlands and leveler part of the Paxson
purchase made six fields in a single row, strung along paralleling
the creek, the far field being a good half mile from the barn, and
anything but an economical arrangement for farming purposes.
My school vacations, when a boy of from thirteen to sixteen, in-
stead of idling my time away, as is too often the case now in
school interludes, were passed in burning brush, picking stones
and, when the time came, sprouting stumps, year after year on
the forty acres we cleared. While this work was disagreeable, it
was a good experience for me in my after life, so that I had no
regrets.
The twenty acres my father bought in 1833 was a part of a
two hundred-acre tract which William Penn's heirs conveyed to
John and Eleanor Hough on Fifth Month 28th, 1741. Stoflfel
Rose was the next purchaser, and after him came his son John,
who established afterwards the ferry, subsequently Painter's, and
under other titles conforming to riparian ownership. Lumberton
was on the north corner of the Rose tract, and so near that of
Paxson's that rights of way had to be purchased of subsequent
owners of the land for races and dams for the Lumberton mills,
perpetuity, and which are now of no value on account of the
wreck of business. The remains of the old mills were removed
in 1834, and the same year a new gristmill was built on the op-
posite side of the creek, and another sawmill below the breast
of its dam. From the headrace of the sawmill a forebay crossed
the roadway twenty-four feet above it, which was a conspicuous
sight. The huge water wheel slowly and steadily revolving as a
HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK 153
synonym of power, and its feeder, straddling the highway on its
long legs, was a sight I remember as impressive in my youthful
days.
The name "Hard Times," which the place once had, and which
was difficult to get rid of when it became prosperous, I well re-
member — a term uncomplimentary to the landlord, who was too
much of a "close-wad" to give the renter a sign ; so the tenant,
to shame him, got an old shutter, and, with tar for paint and a
stick for a brush, write on the rude sign "Hard Times." This
brought a respectable sign from the landlord, which I remember
to have seen standing in front of the hotel until 1842. when the
hotel was given up. The sign, on which was painted a camel,
and which afterwards gave the name to the tavern, was for years
stored in the disused hay mow of its stable, in which, when play-
ing there, when quite a small boy, I admired as a w^ork of art.
This sign should have been saved, but it doubtless went into
kindling wood, as afterwards did the two-storied veranda of
the hotel. The stable was torn down in 1865. On one of its
cornerstones were the initials "W. S." with date 1765, standing
for William Skelton, a former owner. I had this walled-in in
the nearby kitchen end of the double house, where it yet can be
seen unless whitewashed or plastered over.
Before the 1841 freshet the ferrymen, save one, lived on the
Pennsylvania side of the river. The exception was Elias Johnson,
who kept a tavern on the Jersey side, but which was washed
away in the same flood, it being near the shore. The Lombardy
poplars in front of it remained there for years. Although but
little over five years old, I remember seeing my father, with
"cupped" hands, shouting across the river to the ferryman:
"Hello, the boat," a call which, from the distance, required fre-
quent repetition. A new hotel was built further back along the
line of the river road, and the canal, or "feeder" bridge, which
had been washed away, rebuilt, but this going in the 1846 flood,
the ferry was abandoned. Under present conditions the ferry
holders on each side of the river would have had to have been
remunerated from the non-rebuilding of the bridge which had
spliced out the ferry of near a century of standing, as well as the
river landing, but Johnson having been satisfied and my father
not insisting on his rights, for the Lumberton end of the ferry
154 HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK
went with his purchase, the crossing, which had so long been
deemed a necessity, was never-more made by anything larger than
a row boat.
The year before the 1841 freshet Kenderdine & Thomas estab-
lished a branch kmiber yard on the opposite side of the river,
with Elias Johnson as tender, and there was $3,000 worth of
stock seasoned and ready to sell when the flood came and all was
washed away, the owners seeing pile after pile floating ofif, power-
less to save it. Such were the prospects of the firm that it had
at much expense refitted a disused sawmill on Eagle Island, a
mile below, to help out the local mill at Lumberton. The first
log was on the carriage ready for sawing, but when the next
morning came, log, sawmill and the sawyer's house and garden
had gone down the Delaware, along with the branch lumber
yard on the Jersey side. These subsidiaries were never reestab-
lished.
CUTTALOSSA INDIANS.
Beyond tradition and what comes from Buck's history, I know
little concerning the Indians of the Cuttalossa, as I was too young
to get in touch even with the last of them. There was what was
known as an "Indian town," mentioned in transfers of land in
the eighteenth century, particularly concerning the Beaks tract
in 1705, with further allusions back to 1701. Of course this
"town" was nothing more than a collection of wigwams or huts
without alignments on streets or alleys, but it was a settlement.
A tradition from the early Armitages was that this was on the
eastern side of the ancestral mill-dam, where there was a fertile
meadow, substantiated by the finding of various relics in more
recent times, of arrow heads and the like, and as late as 1885
Llewellyn Fries, who then owned the property, found a stone axe
and a last used for shaping moccasins on.
I well remember the tradition of the lost Indian child, and who
was afterwards found drowned in a pool at Indian Rock, at the
head of the sawmill dam, below Laureltown. It was supposed
that the child fell from the rock. This tragedy and the search
and mourning for the lost child by the Indian mother was made
into a poem by the late Watson Kenderdine and is published in
Buck's History of the Cuttalossa.
HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK 155
On an elevation overlooking the Delaware was what was sup-
posed to be the grave of an Indian chief, from the prominence
given it by a cairn of stone eighteen inches high placed over it.
In 1845 some of the neighbors of a ghoulish, curious or historic
nature dug for the bones of the aborigine, but discontinued the
search, either from finding a lengthwise buried log in the way,
as one story went, or mayhap in fear of the rising of the Indian's
ghost. There were several other and lower heaps of stones
around, showing that there had been a cemetery there.
The last of the Indians known along the Cuttalossa were in
three individual instances. The first was Isaiah, no surname, who
was remembered by Silas Preston, of Plumstead, in 1780, going
on his way to the Cuttalossa with a bow and arrow for shooting
trout, showing that that stream was once such a preserve ; in fact
the historian, Buck, in 1873, saw miniature trout in the springs
heading its waters. The two other Indians were of a much more
recent date. One was an old fellow^ named Tuckamony ; the other
his daughter Peg. The latter, as was her father, was an expert
basket-maker, and the late Joseph D. Armitage tells of her mak-
ing him a nice dinner basket for school use of red and blue
splints, the material for which she was allowed to freely gather
from suitable trees in the adjacent woods in readiness for dyeing
and weaving, she being rewarded for the present with 'possum and
snapping turtle meat he had caught, and which Peg pronounces
"much good." When her father died she took the place of the
last of the Mohicans, or rather the Lenni Lenapes. W. J. Buck re-
members Tuckamony coming to his father's store bringing baskets
to trade for goods. The daughter left about 1830 for the happy
hunting grounds. Where was the aboriginal hereafter, or its
basket-making regions, if there was such a locality, where in
spirit she would have "much good" enjoyment of 'possum and
snapper. There was another Indian name Nutimus, but he only
came as a doctor for snake bites on emergencies from his home
in Nockamixon, and is only mentioned as saving the life of Wil-
liam Satterthwaite, the poet, of the Cuttalossa region, who is
elsewhere mentioned. The biter was a rattlesnake, but whether
the remedy of Nutimus was of the Arizona kind, is not stated,
as the poet's wife once tried to poison him, the Indian's skill
156 HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK
might have come in play at another time, but it is doubtful from
his marital experience, if Satterthwaite cared to live.
It is hard telling what became of the main body of Indians.
In their intercourse with the whites there seems to have been
none of the combative disposition manifested by them towards
other colonies. In eastern Pennsylvania the kindly spirit shown
by Penn towards the Red Man was so reciprocated that there
was no clashing between the two races, and after receiving pay-
ment for their lands the Indians seem to have folded their wig-
wams like the Arabs their tents, to paraphrase, and quietly gone
their way, leaving the few isolated cases mentioned, who one by
one pathetically died off.
DIFFERENT BUSINESS IN LUMBERTON.
Concerning the different businesses previous to the final slump
in trade at Lumberton, there were a sawmill and gristmill there
before the Revolution, as stated, and doubtless a store and tavern,
as there was an important ferry after the highway was laid out
at the York road. The mills were then run by John Kugler, as
has been mentioned, or until 1780, after which time he was jailed
for disloyalty. From 1780 till 1833, different people undertook
to carry on business there, the John Gillingham spoken of being
the most prominent. He bought mills, lumber yard, hotel and
farm in 1816, but by 1819 the sheriff came along and sold the
entire property to Jeremiah King, from whose heirs it was trans-
ferred to his son-in-law, Thomas Little, whose widow I well re-
member living in Lumberville. Between 1794 and 1819 the place
had been thrice sold under the sheriff's hammer, thus for twenty-
five years there had been frequent sellings out by the courts, until
the name of "Hard Times," got to be quite appropriate.
When John E. Kenderdine took possession of the place in 1833
a great change came over the prospects of Lumberton, the new
sawmill and gristmill and lately opened canal giving great im-
petus to them. Renting the gristmill to Lukens Thomas, who had
followed him up from Horsham he took John D. and William
Balderston, of Solebury, into partnership under the title of" Ken-
derdine, Balderston & Co.," as dealers in lumber, and sawyers
of pine and hemlock logs drawn from rafts in the river. About
1840 the Balderstons withdrew from the company, Lukens
HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK 157
Thomas taking their places, he having given up the gristmill to
Isaiah and James Quinby, brothers-in-law to John E. Kenderdine.
In 1842 Lukens Thomas took over the lumber establishment him-
self, keeping it till 1846, when he had bought from the estate of
William Dil worth, an opposition yard, and much to the chagrin
of his former partner. His place was taken by William
Webster, who also came from Horsham, and James Quinby, who
had left the gristmill to join him, the firm name being Quinby &
Webster, Isaiah Quinby assuming charge of the mill. The firm
did not last a year, Webster going to another opposition lumber
yard in New Hope, occasioning further chagrin in the mind of
his predecessor, John E. Kinderdine, he taking the place of Web-
ster. Quinby, also, soon got weary of the business, and went on
the sawmill, John E. Kenderdine again taking charge of the lum-
ber business, which was until 1853, wdien he took Morris L. Fell,
from Buckingham, in partnership, run under the name of Kender-
dine & Fell. In another year Anthony Margerum, also from
Horsham, took the senior partner's place, under the title of Fell &
Margerum, adding contract building to the other extensive busi-
ness in lumber and factory work (as wood working machinery had
been installed at Laurelton). This firm dissolved in 1860, when John
E. Kinderdine again took over the business, keeping it till 1865,
when it reverted to his sons, Watson and Thaddeus S., under the
title of Kendernine Brothers. For nearly ten years they had
the lumber and coal yard, sawmill and door and sash factory and
fertilizer works just started, purchasing the Laurelton section
after the death of their father in 1869, and carrying on that part
till the fall of 1874, when the firm dissolved. The senior member
buying the place and carrying on the business alone until 1891.
A few years after Watson Kenderdine took his son-in-law,
Hampton W. Rice, into partnership under the name of Kender-
dine & Rice, confining their business to fertilizers. In a few
years they dissolved partnership, the senior partner continuing for
a few years until business became so poor from the encroachment
of the North East Pennsylvania railroad which cut ofif the in-
land trade, so that the mill went into pathetic silence. This
property, after its last owner's death brought but one-tenth of its
cost, the woodwork being sold ofif for old lumber, so that there is
158 HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK
nothing left now but the foundation walls of a once prosperous
establishment.
The gristmill was bought of the estate of John E. Kenderdine
in 1869 by Eugene and Wilson S. Paxson and run by them for
several years, much money being spent on its improvement, which
was all thrown away for the business in time was done for. The
walls yet stand but the machinery is gone, while the rain for
many years through a leaking roof has so afifected the interior
that on my last visit, when I essayed to see how the upper parts
looked, I found the first stairway too much decayed for safe
mounting.
The lumber yard and sawmill and two houses, as well as the
river and canal landings, were bought by Isaac H. Worstall,
who rented the property to Bennett & Tinsman of Monroe, later
it was bought by William Tinsman, then by William Tinsman
& Son, and still later by Daniel Tinsman & Son. When they aban-
doned the sawmill they continued to maintain a lumber yard.
The stone quarries of Lumberton had been worked in a small
way for forty years, when the Kemble Brothers, contractors and
politicians of Philadelphia, bought them of Worstall, as well as
the once Kenderdine farm back of them, and for twenty-five
years they operated them extensively, sometimes employing one
hundred men, getting out large dressed building stone and paving
blocks, the latter going to pave the streets of Philadelphia, where
the senior member of the firm had large contracts.
For awhile all this material went down the canal, but later a
tramway was built across the Delaware river to a siding on the
Belvidere railroad, and the stone run across on a carrier. The
Kembles bought another farm on which there was a quarry,. Be
sides, they had built two new houses in Lumberton and several
in Lumberville for their employes, but the stone business petered
out, the same as had the lumber and grain business, mainly from
the introduction of asphalt for paving and concrete for building
walls, so the quarries became idle, as are the rest of the once-
prominent enterprises around Lumberton, till it is as a "banquet
hall deserted," the old name of the village being even removed
from the, sign on the yet-standing quarry office — the word "Lum-
berville" taking its place in the "Lumberton Granite Quarry Com-
HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK 159
pany," the term "granite" being a fake, the same as the title of
the village.
POETS AND POETRY OF THE CUTTALOSSA.
The Cuttalossa may have been "unwept and unhonored." but
it has not been "unsung" even though in a primitive way. In
Buck's and Davis' histories there are about a dozen poems of
more or less merit, referring to the stream, and Whittier from his
temporary nearness to its watery windings might easily have been
induced to have further immortalized it with the favorings of his
pen, for the Healy farm, the place of some of his summer out-
ings, overlooked the Cuttalossa, and there was an impressive
view over where its waters meandered through its bosky entour-
age towards the Delaware, but, beyond a thirty-years remem-
brance of the "little river." and its outlet, we have nothing from
the Quaker poet. While at his vacation residence he had larger
ventures on hand, and between them and his editorial work on
the Pennsylvania Freeman, and perfecting some of his poems in
transit, he had little time for local work.
With the exception of a poem addressed to the Neshaminy, and
put to the Confederate States' tune of "My Maryland," as a class
song, written by a George School student, no other Bucks county
stream has been poetically apostrophized. A poem written by
Nathan Ely about 1850 and dedicated "To the Cuttalossa," is
mainly impressive from the personality of the author. An humble
farmer, in seclusion from a stammering infirmity, and this to an
extent to cause him to be mimicked by the thoughtless, and home-
ly in face and figure, deserving, as I knew him, the pathetic title
of "a harmless old man," but he had a poetic nature, to an extent,
perhaps brought about by his social isolation, which even his in-
timate friends were unaware of. least of all that he would sing
of "loving youthful pairs" and their "talk of love and future
bliss." The following are the verses, and it is worthy of remark
that they were written before the stream became one of note :
TO THE CUTTALOSSA.
Fair Cuttalossa, why shouldst thou
Remain unnamed in song.
When thy meandering waters flow
So pure and bright along?
160 HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK
Thou glidest through the grassy mead
And through the lonely dell,
While smaller tributary streams
Thy murmuring waters swell.
In places, too, thy winding sides
With trees are thickly crowned,
And in thy dark and lonely vales
May solitude be found;
And though my youthful days are past,
Yet still I love to stray
Along thy wild romantic shores
And hear thy waters play.
Here on thy spreading, smooth-barked beech
How many names appear!
Carved by the hands of those who once
Were glad to wander here.
Full many a loving, j'outhful pair
Along thy banks have strayed
And talked of love and future bliss
Beneath the spreading shade.
But ah! How many who once loved
Along Ihy shores to roam
Now sleep beneath the graveyard sod
Lain in their final home.
And I, ere many years are past.
Must cease to visit thee.
But while I live thy shady banks
Will still be dear to me.
Watson Kenderdine wrote a "Legend of the Cuttalossa" in
his youth, referring to the tragic death of a young Indian girl,
previously mentioned, and William J. Buck wrote "The Fern's
Complaint," an allusion to the robbery of the beds of that plant
by tourists along the stream, and also "The Wood Thrush's Song,"
both of credit to one devoted to the prose of local history. The
three poems were published in the Cuttalossa book. "A Rural
Sketch," written by Dr. John Watson, of Buckingham, about the
year 1800, has the following concluding verse :
And let man not throng his vain pride despise
The rural hamlets and the happy swain.
Where Lahaskae and Cuttelause rise
And water with their streams the fertile plain.
HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK 161
Perhaps I may be allowed to add a poem of my own in con-
nection with the subject:
Where Cuttalossa's flowing
Goes murmuring on its way,
By bush and sapHng going,
And tall trees old and gray,
Just where across the water
From the quaint old gristmill come
The big brown wheel's low patter,
And the mill stone's drowsy hum;
Here sparkling from its birthplace.
Just up the rifted hill,
From out its caverned earthplace,
Cascades a little rill,
Till in a horse trough mossy.
It pours its crystal tide,
Where comes the Cuttalossa
From meadows green and wide.
Thy beeches gray and lettered
With names carved long ago.
Shading thy waves unfettered
As riverv^ard they go.
Thy spice-wood fringed meadows.
The hills that slope beyond.
The trees which cast their shadows
In placid pool and pond;
Passed is each old time feature;
All once familiar gone —
It seems revenging nature
Was coming to its own.
No wonder that heart burnings,
I feel to count the cost,
As come to me the yearnings
For so much loved and lost.
Thy streamlets laurel shaded.
As they for aye have been.
By dryads reinvaded,
And all their woodland kin;
Thy many mill wheels noiseless,
Unroofed their ragged walls.
Thy homesteads sad and voiceless
Where once were happy halls;
From cellar up to attic,
In Fate's relentless wars.
162 HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK
And all so emblematic
Of human deaths and scars,
Traditions torn asunder
From wreckages of time,
Can even strangers wonder
If sadness rules my rhyme?
My parents, sisters, brothers.
That happy made my life.
Near neighbors and the others.
With them my thoughts are rife.
Oh! Whittier's "little river"
Whose vale so much enfolds,
Forget thee I will never.
While faintest memory holds!
There was also another of my poems of one hundred and eighty
hnes entitled : "A Lyric of the Cuttalossa," written about 1870,
mainly imaginable, and in reference to the fountain and the theft
of "Our Cup." While the sylvan guardians of the place, the
Naiads and Satyrs, tricked by Morpheus, went to sleep, the rob-
bery occurred, to their extreme disturbance on awaking. But,
stung by remorse to the extent of a violent nightmare, the man
and brother brought the cup back the next morning to the great
rejoicings of
The woodland sprites exultant
Who in sportive gambols played:
Pan piping a bacchanal measure
Frisked up and down the glade,
While the goat-like prancing Satyrs
And the Naiads, scant arrayed,
Keeping time to the pipe's wild music
Danced minuets in the shade!
The first poem relative to the Cuttalossa was written by Eliza-
beth Armitage in 1816. She was a sister to "Uncle John," the
miller, to whom a chapter is given in Buck's history. The verses
are lost, but it is said that they were more noted for their odd
spelling of the creek than for poetic merit, although it is men-
tionable that over a century ago the Cuttalossa stirred up the
muses. It was addressed to the "Scuteloss," and even if lacking
in metrical imagination, it is unfortunate that the poem was lost,
it being the work of an old-fashioned maiden lady, housekeeper
for "Uncle John." Her giant boxbush, of an age to suggest the
title of a century plant, I very well remember seeing as it stood
HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK 163
in front of the miller's house, but that, as has its caretaker, has
long since passed away.
Cyrus Livezey also wrote a poem on the Cuttalossa which was
read before a literary gathering around "Poet's Rock" on the
shores of the stream in 1871. His brother, Allen Livezey, got up
five verses similarly addressed which can be found in Davis'
Bucks County History. There were other poets along the val-
ley, but their lines do not particularly refer to its water. Among
these writers was George Lear, and of note in after years in our
county-seat, and who, to earn money to fit himself as a school
teacher, as a preliminary to studying for the law, labored at
digging the headrace of the second Lumberton sawmill after
"doing his bit" on the Delaware canal on the same lines. What-
ever credit there was in the given advice, my father should have
it, for, seeing great possibilities in the humble pick-and-shovel
man, he urged him to higher flights, which finally culminated at
the height of attorney general of the state of Pennsylvania. It
was in the local debating school where my father saw that Lear
deserved more than he was getting as a day laborer, and advised
him to make efforts toward what his intellect was fitted for,
which advice he took. When he was admitted to the bar, he gave
him his first fee.
As a local poet I must not forget William Satterthwaite, before
mentioned, as eccentric Englishman, who came to this country'
with his wife about 1740. After living in different places, par-
ticularly at the Durham Furnace and Philadelphia, he came to
Solebury, where he built a house, or what would now be called
a bungalow, at the foot of Copper Nose, below what was after-
ward Lumberville. He owned land on the plain above and there
are yet the marks of a road he dug to reach his upper holdings,
necessary, for the hill overshadowing his home rises to the steep-
ness of forty-five degrees. W^hile a fabricator of poetry, none of
which, so far as I can find out referred to the Cuttalossa, he lived
near enough to the stream to draw inspiration from a valley
whence close resident poets seem to have received it. A victim to
domestic lack of bliss, at one time involving poisoning by his ill-
tempered wife, and at another from being bitten by a rattlesnake,
which reptile should have named the abrupt hill back of his
home, and from which he was saved from death by the Indian
164 HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK
doctor, Nutimus, from Nockamixon, he may have been driven to
poetry by the mentioned troubles, and outside the inspiration al-
luded to. At any rate he had the divine afflatus. He wrote
several poems, extracts from a number of which I will give. One
of these, in particular I remember my father speaking of when
I was quite a lad, and which had "Nothing" for its subject. Being
asked by a girl pupil to write her a poem, and not then in a
poetic humor, perhaps from having been that morning too much
of a target for his wife's tongue, rolling-pin or flying dishes, he
answered, "As I feel now I can write about nothing." "All
right," she said, "write about Nothing." Satterthwaite made an
affirmative reply, and, taking "Nothing" for his subject, wrote a
remarkable poem thereon, beginning :
Nothing! Nothing! Mysterious Nothing, that shall be my theme,
Nothing! Nothing! Mysterious Nothing, whence all beings came.
After many sad experiences and tribulations, in which his wife
acted discordant parts, and through which he was befriended by
such important persons as Judge Jeremiah Langhorne and Pro-
vincial Surveyor Jacob Taylor, and doubtless tired of playing
Socrates to his Xantippe, Satterthwaite went to a deserved rest
at the home of his kind friend, Langhorne, nevermore, let us
trust, to be harassed by scold or serpent.
Satterthwaite was a school teacher and a classical scholar, and
after coming to Philadelphia taught in Jacob Taylor's school,
and after Taylor became surveyor general was made deputy sur-
veyor of the Province. He taught several schools in Bucking-
ham and Solebury, just before the Revolution at the junction of
the Street road and the road leading to New Hope from near
what is now Glendale. He was proficient in Latin and Greek,
so much so in the latter that he used it in talking to his horse
which he seemed to think understood him. Showing further
Satterthwaite's eccentric ways, once when he saw a negro in his
despondency from being whipped by a brother African, threaten-
ing to take his life, he told him that would be wicked, and to let
his adviser act as executioner. Satterthwaite performed this
service so well that before its conclusion the negro begged off
and was cured of his desire for self destruction.
My father came into possession of some of Satterthwaite's
' HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK 165
manuscript ; how, and what became of it I do not know, so I
must depend on Davis' Bucks' County History for the extracts
I give. The poet did not Hve in the Cuttalossa valley, but a half
mile away, but in his despondent wanderings he paid it visits.
His unfortunate marriage seemingly a forced one before leaving
England, had much to do with his sad life, extending to quite ad-
vanced years.
In his poetry he did not forget to apostrophize the snake which
came nearly doing him up, thus :
Thou poisonous serpent with a noisy tall,
Whose teeth are tinctured with the plagues of hell!
So it seems that he was not bitten by a copperhead, which sup-
posedly from that gave name to the hill overshadowing his house.
He afterwards remarked that since attempts to poison him had
been vainly made by both snake and wife he "defied all the devils
in hell to kill him."
While his wife's poison failed to do him up, a poem he wrote
failed to cure her of one of her sins — extravagance. This was
the "Indian Queen," the scene of which was laid in the valley of
the Laoglan, a creek entering the Delaware from New Jersey,
below Lumberton. The leading lady was a princess who, dis-
satisfied with the plain buckskin suit she had been wearing, after
getting a gay calico gown, accompanied with a looking glass, went
abroad to show her finery. Passing a fire her dress caught in
the flames and she was burned to death ; a catastrophe avoidable
had she stuck to her former attire. The last two lines of the
poem were :
The princess dies, and I conclude my verse.
Thus, like Alcides, on his flaming hearse,
Instead of this reforming his wife she ran away, thus showing
that while the poet's fabled lyre may make trees dance, woman's
desire for dress is not amenable to its persuasions. After his
wife's abandonment, in one of his forlorn wanderings, Satterth-
waite went to William Skelton's mill at the mouth of the Cutta-
lossa. Finding the mill closed, he wrote on the door.
Here Skelton lurks, and unkind refuge seeks,
On Delaware's banks, between two awful peaks.
Showing his weariness of teaching he thus expressed himself :
166 HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK
Oh! what a 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 gets the blame.
The following is part of elegy to his good friend, Jeremiah
Langhorne :
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 had to hand to join.
Without regard to fear or hope, or gain,
Or sly designs of false, corrupted men.
Of a religious nature he wrote a poem entitled "Providence,"
beginning :
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!
The following poem, reproving a young woman for singing,
was found among my father's papers :
Though singing is a pleasant thing,
Approved and done in Heaven;
It only should employ the souls
Who know their sins forgiven.
Though far from being contemporaneous, as Satterthwaite died
a few years before my father was born, the poet seems to have
much impressed him ; perhaps from his association with Lum-
berton.
Besides the friends of Satterthwaite already named, there was
Lawrence Growdon, who invited him in his declining years to
make his home with him, but he went to Jeremiah Langhorne's
instead, and there at Langhorne Park his life ended. John Chap-
man, clerk at the Durham Iron Works, where Satterthwaite
taught school for sevaral years, was also his good friend, as was
also John Watson, who being something of a poet, made their
meeting together the more agreeable. Watson, as a state sur-
veyor, with his party, did work around the Durham Iron Works.
HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK 167
There was also a man named Pellar, perhaps a Solebury Pellar,
to be added to the coterie. Mention is made of the party in their
leisure hours (when school was not kept, the chain and quadrant
idle and the clerk not wanted at his desk), that they convening
at a Durham trout stream, where, between casts of flies and the
draft of "speckled beauties," and sips of punch, the poets, and
those of other guilds talked shop and read one to another. In his
closing years, when under the hospitable roof of Langhorne, and
after his Jezebel of a wife had ceased to trouble, he often re-
verted to those halcyon days along Durham creek. He must
have remembered the extemporaneous ode with which his friend
Watson woke up the lazybones of the camp, closing with :
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 noon comes ere we can survey.
Indicating that Surveyor John Watson, despite his friendliness,
did not object to drinking something stronger than tea. Thus
showing that Satterthwaite, despite his failings, had his friends ;
so I make no excuse for giving him so much space, the facts of
which I am mainly indebted to Davis' History, from the chapter
"Our Poets and Their Poetry." The Satterthwaites had a son
named George, but there is no knowledge as to what became
of him.
THE FOUNTAIN.
To write up the Cuttalossa history and leave out something
concerning the fountain would be eliminating the mournful Dane
in playing Hamlet. This is where the valley opens onto farm
lands, though at the foot of a wooded hillside, and where a
copious spring gushes from a little cavern at the summit. As the
historian Bucks says, "the situation is lovely and romantic. The
fountain is overhung and shaded by the long pendant branches of
the beech, red oak and willow. The spice wood also helps to
canopy it, in September brilliant with numerous red berries."
In 1866, long after John E. Kenderdine had placed a watering-
trough by the roadside, Joseph D. Armitage (who lived on an
ancestral farm just across the Cuttalossa). noticing the many
people stopping there to quench their thirst, made a drinking cup
168 HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK
from a cocoanut shell, with an iron handle on which he inscribed :
OUR CUP.
Art not cold wells and crystal springs,
For our hotels the very things?
Whittier.
His crediting the lines to Whittier was a mistake, as they were
written by John Pierpont. To further beautify and utilize the
spring with its rude wooden watering-trough, the neighbors, and
people as far away as Doylestown, subscribed the sum of $160
for a flagstone trough, flanked with concave walls, on each end
of which there was a capped column and stone steps, on which
were inscribed the above verse of Pierpoint's, and also "Cutta-
LOSSA Fountain, erected 1873, by Admirers of the Beauti-
ful/' In addition to the cash subscriptions there was much
gratitous work.
On the opposite side of the road, overshadowed by a large wil-
low tree, on a stone foundation was set a marble basin four feet
square, a companion piece to one in front of the Fountain House,
Doylestown, and in this an image of a boy on whose head rested
a shell. A lead pipe was run from the spring under the road and
up through the basin, image and shell, and on its summit a wheat
sheaf shaped spray was arranged. With the good pressure at its
back a fine fountain was the result, the admiration of all passers-
by, tourists coming from far and near to see it, and to water their
teams and rest on the seats placed on the slope of the hill. For
awhile an ice cream vendor came on certain days, and the place
became quite a resort. Everything went well for a time ; the
Armitage sisters, who owned the property around the spring,
cleared out the underbrush, put up additional steps and planted
hitching posts. But the time came when these good ladies died
and the promoters of the fountain had moved away — those who
had, when danger of destruction by freezing came to the perish-
able parts of the fountain, removed and housed them through the
winter months, and in the spring replaced them. Finally there
were no caretakers, and hence no autumn removals of the perish-
able parts ; the openings froze, bad boys stoned the image and
shell, and the time came when the beautiful erection in the
shades of the Cuttalossa valley was a wreck. To crown these mis-
HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK 169
fortunes someone stole a marble block from its column, the one
on which was carved the beautiful verse of Pierpont's. To those
who expended so much for this beauty spot a visit to the wrecked
place is saddening. William J. Buck visited the fountain in 1896,
and was pained at the sight. When he was there before there
were many visitors, the beautiful center of the shaded surround-
ings was in perfect shape, and the fountain playing. Now all
was so dififerent ; the many travelers were replaced by a lone
bicycler, the pipe from the spring was choked up and the foun-
tain accessories gone. I suppose the wonder was that, without
the caretakers, they had lasted as long as they had.
A few hundred yards below on the left side of the creek is a
largesized, oblong stone, named "Poet's Rock," from a literary
gathering once held there. In a glen just back of it was a large
beech, its bark carved with many names, among which, plainly
seen in 1873, was the following: "Rt. Kenerdine, 4th Month
27th. 1856; for Futurity." He was then fifteen yeears old, a
peaceful, Quaker boy, little thinking then that in seven years he
would be brought home dead from the awful carnage at Gettys-
burg. The tree is no longer there, for the portable sawmill has
done its work and the glen is deforested.
Of the good people who lived along the valley of the Cutta-
losse, and whom I can remember and whom I can count not
only by units but by scores — the owners of farms and tenants
thereof — the owners, the Seiners, Jewells, Balderstons, Wilsons,
Armitages, Healys, Paxsons and others — where are they? I can
only name as yet residents, or in the land of the living, Charles
S. Baldereston, Amos Armitage, Eugene Paxson and his son,
Samuel L., living on the divided farm of Howard Paxson, their
ancestor. Excepting those.
They have gone their short space, they have lived their short day;
As a tale that is told they have vanished away.
When my father moved to Lumberton it was with the justified
thought that his descendants would occupy his holdings in per-
petuity, and he made his will in accordance. The result : a line
of ruined business places in succession along the Cuttalossa and a
scattered family, none of the name living within fifteen miles of
Lumberton, showing that while man proposes changed business
conditions make the disposition.
170 HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK
Relative to the difference in sizes of families, then and now,
I will mention three instances on contiguous farms. In our
family there were eight children, in Howard Paxson's nine, and
in his brother Abraham's ten, the latter now all deceased. Of
Howard Paxson's, seven of the nine are living, and of my
father's two remain. These families all belonged to the Society
of Friends, in fact among the people for miles around there was
scarcely a family that did not belong to that society. Of the
few descendants left, there is not one save at rare intervals, who
now attend the Solebury Meeting, the place of worship of their
ancestors, where carriage loads formerly wended their way. With
such families as those named and I have left out one, William
Kitchen, a farmer living away from the others I have named,
where there were seven children, all now deceased, is it any
wonder that our "eight-square schoolhouse" had a roster of
ninety pupils, even if they could not all get within its confines at
one time, they crowded in and came by relays. There were no
truant laws then.
This much from what I know personally and from printed
data concerning the Cuttalossa, its mills, homes and people. I
have heretofore written much concerning the locality, but a great
part of this was of extreme local or family interest ; so much so,
indeed, as to not be effective for the general public. For an ex-
haustive account of the Cuttalossa the curious are referred to
Buck's History or Reeder's "Early Soolebury Settlers." As to
the first-named author, from his distance from the scenery and
people connected with the valley, he has done wonders in making
searches from ancient documents and gleaning information from
local contemporaries around the titled stream. Unfortunately
for those interested, at least so far as I have sought to get a copy
of "The Cuttalossa, Its Historical, Traditional and Poetical Asso-
ciations," the book was not obtainable, when twice advertising
for one to replace by lire-damaged copy. There was talk of its
re-publication, but so far it has not availed.
NOTE BY THE EDITOR.
Mr. Kenderdine was in the 82nd. year of his age when he
read this paper. He was born in the village of Lumberton,
HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES OF CUTTALOSSA CREEK 171
Bucks county, Pa., December 10, 1836, and passed away at his
home at Newtown, Pa., February 17, 1922.
He was elected a member of the Bucks County Historical
Society July 21, 1896, and on January 17, 1911, was made a
member of its board of directors, serving in that capacity down
to the time of his death. He was an active member of the so-
ciety, attending its meetings with regularity and contributing a
number of valuable papers, as reference to the society's publica-
tions will show. He was a prolific writer of both prose and
poetry, and the seven books which he published can be found on
the shelves of our library. His first book, published in 1888,
entitled "A California Tramp, and Later Footprints," (contain-
ing 416 pages) gives a most interesting and graphic account of
his trip across the prairies punching a team of oxen, from
Leavenworth, Kansas, to Camp Floyd, near Salt Lake City, Utah,
loaded with supplies for one of the western forts, and the after
experiences of his trip to California after discharging his load,
and leaving his team of oxen. This, as well as his other writ-
ings, show him to have been a man of more than usual literary
attainments. He was one of the Bucks County Poets referred to
by General Davis in his History of Bucks County. His second
book, published in 1898. is entitled "California Revisited." His
other five books, published in 1913, 1914, 1916, 1917 and 1921
respectively, which he calls "Personal Recollections and Travels
at Home and Abroad," (Vol. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) are made up
largely of papers read before societies or published in newspapers.
One of them. Volume 5. contains his autobiography, to which
reference can be had. His portrait forms part of the frontispiece
of this volume.
Maple Sugar Making in Southwestern Pennsylvania and
Northeastern Virginia.
BY E. F. BOWLBY, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Doylestown Meeting, January 18, 1918.)
ALONG about the middle of February, the farmer would
load his sugar-troughs on a sled (often drawn by a good
yoke of oxen) and distribute them to the sugar maple
trees, one and sometimes two or even three to a tree, if that
particular tree had the reputation of being a good producer or if
the season promised to be short. After the troughs had been
distributed and the weather just right for a good flow, (for the
sugar maple tree is very sensitive to weather conditions,) he took
his tapping-auger, a small wooden mallet and a basket of spiles
and proceeded to tap the trees. This is done by boring holes in
the side of the trees about eighteen inches or two feet from the
ground (generally on the southeast side and about one inch in
depth), fitting into the holes two or three spiles for each trough,
which is placed firmly up close to the tree under the spiles. These
spiles were made from the elder or the sumac and were about
one foot long, one end being tapered so as to fit snugly in the
hole in the tree ; the top was shaven down to the pith, which was
removed, leaving that part an open spout.
The troughs were made from some easily-worked wood, such
as poplar, or walnut. The tree intended for troughs was first
cut into lengths of from three to five feet, then split into halves,
each half hewed out with an adze and axe into neat little troughs,
holding from three to six gallons. The augers wxre made by
the local blacksmith.
Next was the gathering of the sugar-water and hauling it
to the sugarhouse, this was done by placing barrels on sleds,
drawn by the same faithful yoke of oxen. The sugar-water, was
dipped from the troughs with a gourd dipper, first into wooden
pails and then poured into the barrels through a funnel made
from one of the sugar troughs by boring a whole in its bottom in
which was driven a short wooden spout. The sugarhouse was
built of logs in some convenient place in the woods, (always
MAPLE SUGAR MAKING 173
leaving an opening in the roof to allow the steam to escape).
The furnace was built of stone and arched over the top, into
which were inserted large iron kettles, as many as were
needed. The chimney was built on the outside at the end of the
sugarhouse. Although situated in the bituminous coal district,
the fuel was wood which was cut and hauled and piled just out-
side the sugarhouse during the early months of winter. The
sugar-water was poured into these kettles and boiled down to a
thin syrup, often throwing into the kettle of boiling sugar- water
a small piece of fat meat to keep it from foaming over the top of
the kettle.
The periods of boiling down were continuous day and night,
or days and nights when they had specially good runs of sugar-
water. During these long evening-boilings, the young folks
would gather at the sugarhouse and have their "stirring-off"
parties. They would hang an iron pot on a tripod over an open
fire and boil down this syrup, sitting around it, each one with a
large spoon, and a cup of cold w^ater, and dip the boiling syrup
from the pot and drop it into the water. The result was the
finest maple wax and taffy that any mortal ever tasted. Talk
about your husking-bees, apple-cuttings, corn-roasts, etc., they
were not to be compared to the pleasure of a stirring-off party
at the old sugarhouses.
This syrup was then taken to the sugarhouse where the boil-
ing down was continued until it reached just the right point,
the kettle was then taken from the fire and the contents stirred
vigorously until the result became a nice crumbly mass of maple
sugar.
AN OLD WALNUT SUGAR TROUGH.
In conclusion I want to describe an old walnut sugar-trough
presented to the Bucks County Historical Society by Mr. J. C.
Lemley of near Mount Morris, Greene county, Pennsylvania.
This historic trough (exhibiting trough) was made from the
top of an old walnut tree, cut on the Lemley farm in the spring
of 1838, the farm now owned by J. C. Lemley but then owned
by his uncle, Asa Lemley, who in that year had the body of the
tree sawed into planks and the top and large limbs made into
sugar-troughs.
In September 1767, Mason & Dixon with their engineers and
174 MAPLE SUGAR MAKING
axemen, came to Dunkirk creek, and on sighting their instru-
ments across the creek, found this large tree to be directly on
the line and sent some of their axemen across to blaze it as a
line-tree. This was done by making three hacks about two feet
apart with an axe. When the men approached the tree they were
attacked by Shawnee and Delaware Indians, and were driven
away. On making another attempt they were again attacked
and some of the party were killed, while the rest of them, includ-
ing Mason and Dixon, were driven back and did not resume their
survey until twelve years later, when they completed their work
without further trouble from the Indians. This walnut tree was
the last tree marked until the return of Mason and Dixon twelve
years later. When they returned in 1779, to complete the survey,
they found the Indians had place a thirty-foot ladder against this
tree, and from there up had bored holes into which they drove
wooden pins, by which they climbed to its top in order to get
honey, for this was a bee tree. And this is supposed to be the
reason why the Indians had attacked the men and driven them
away, thinking they were going to cut down the tree to get the
honey. J. C. Lumley has another trough, made from the same
tree, which is charred on one side, showing where the Indians
had a fire to smoke out the bees. This walnut tree stood on the
north bank of Dunkirk creek at the first and lower crossing of
Mason & Dixon's line, two miles southeast of Fort Morris, Pa.,
three miles northeast of Statler's Fort and about ten miles due
west of Fort Martin, Pa., near the Monongahela river. This tree
was at the end of the survey, the line ending at two gum trees
standing about one-half mile east thereof. On the Pennsylvania
side, near this tree, is the remains of an Old Indian fort, and on
the West Virginia side, about the same distance from the line,
on a large stone is what Mr. Lemley called a "turkey foot", but
which I am inclined to think was an Indian guidepost. as it
points directly north and south.
Mr. Lemley has also presented to this society three spiles over
forty-five years old, made from elders, also a gourd dipper which
he had used to dip sugar- water from the troughs. (These ob-
jects were shown at the meeting, and brought forth quite an in-
teresting discussion.)
Mr. Lemley has in his possession a gourd dipper and an uncut
NORSE MILLS OF COLONIAL TIMES IN PENNSYLVANIA 175
gourd which are now (1919) eighty-seven years old. He also
showed me his present sugarhouse which is partly sided up with
some of the plank sawed eighty years ago from the old walnut
tree to which I have referred. One of these plank contains the
three hacks made by Mason & Dixon's men in blazing the tree.
Also another plank with three holes bored by the Indians in
which the wooden pins were driven to form a ladder by which
they climbed the tree.
Norse Mills of Colonial Times in Pennsylvania.
BY FREDERICK HART SHELTON, PHILADELPHIA, PA.^
(Doylestown Meeting-, January 18, 1919.)
IN some of the text books on geometry, etc., a concise ques-
tion or proposition is first propounded ; the answer given and
then the detail shown, of how the answer is arrived at.
In approaching the subject of this paper I am inclined to pro-
ceed in much the same way. by first tersely asking, "What is a
Norse Mill" and also "What has such to do with the history of
this district in which we are interested ?" and then briefly answer-
ing, first, that a so-called "Norse Mill" is the crudest and simplest
form of old time water wheel, used for driving a primitive grist-
mill ; and second that it was such form of mill that was first
erected in the territory that is now the Commonwealth of Penn-
sylvania and the first kind of power mill of any sort to turn a
wheel in this state, that now, nearly three centuries later, is one
of the chief industrial states of the Union. This being so, it
becomes of some interest to learn- what a Norse mill was, and
when, where and by whom such was or were erected in the lo-
cality in which we now dig up — both metaphorically and actually,
the records and evidences of the past.
Water wheels, like nearly everything else, have been developed,
from early crude and inefficient forms, to advanced forms of
high efficiency. The present type, the modern iron turbine wheel,
gives an efficiency of power secured, compared with the theoreti-
1 Mr. Shelton died in Pliiladelphia, November 24, 1924.
176 NORSE MILLS OF COLONIAL TIMES IN PENNSYLVANIA
cal power of the water used, of up to eighty-five per cent. This
is a development of say the last three generations. But for hun-
dreds of years before this, the highest perfection of water wheel
design, dating from remotest ages, back to the Romans and all
that, was the old overshot wood wheel, familiar to every one as
the characteristic water wheel of the miller, the artist, the poet
and the schoolbook. While there were variations, known as the
breast wheel, when the water was admitted not on top, but on the
side ; or the undershot, when the water impinged against the
lower part of the wheel, the general type and form was the same,
viz : a massive, large wooden wheel on edge, like a silver dollar,
carried on a shaft or axle, from which the power was in nearly
every case, necessarily taken off by suitable intermediate gearing,
to the grist stones or other machinery to be driven.
But while such form of wheel, giving up to perhaps sixty per
cent of efficiency, was in general use in all countries favored
with water falls, there was yet a simpler and cruder form also in
use, namely that which is known as the "Norse" wheel, at least
in the English speaking races. And this form is best described
or brought to mind by picturing such a miniature wheel as a boy
would make by sticking a few shingles into a vertical shaft and
setting such in a brook where the water would hit the blades on
one side and make the wheel turn around. That is all there is
practically, to a Norse wheel. You can see that nothing could
be more simple ; that it is the crudest possible form of power
wheel, and that as such, nations or countries but partly civilized
could yet construct and use in a simple primitive way ; which has
been the case the world over. For like everything else, in which
there are both simple and complex forms of things, side by side,
while the more elaborate overshot wheel was equally known and
of equal antiquity, the little ■ horizontal spin-wheel of this so-
called Norse form, was used at the same time and probably in
considerably greater numbers, through all known ages.
Remains of these wheels have been dug up in Ireland, that
trace back to the period between the years 700 and 1100, and
there is plenty of evidence elsewhere of their use for half a
dozen centuries back, the world over. Weisbach in his Mechanics
of Engineering says that "they are met with in all the moun-
tainous countries of Europe and in the north of Africa, applied
NORSE MILLS OF COLONIAL TIMES IN PENNSYLVANIA 177
as mills for grinding corn." They are still found in the remote
portions of Norway and Sweden and in the Shetland, Orkney
and Farce Islands ; in Maderia and in Roumania ; extensively
used and of great antiquity of use. In France, they have long
been known as the "roulet volante" and a cut of one is shown
in Glynn's A Rudimentary Treatise on Pozver of Water of 1853.
The best description, in detail and with illustrations, of this
type of old. primitive water wheel can be found in Vol. II of
Bennett and Eaton's History of Corn Milling (1899), where in
chapter 3, eighteen pages upon the subject may be found. An-
other description is that of an article on old "Clack Mills" in
English County Life, Vol. XXV (1904), pp. 709-10, where an
old Norse mill in the Orkney Islands is pictured and described,
with a sketch as well of the mill stone and grain feed detail.
Mitchell's Past in the Present (1876), gives a brief description.
TJic Scientific American of May 8, 1886, page 292, vol. 54,
briefly describes "A Shetland Tirl". And lesser references to
these mills can be found in many of the engineering and other
books on water wheels, their history, etc. I will not consume time
by here going into an extended detail of the design and construc-
tion, as the type was or is the same, where ever found, while the
detail varies naturally, according to human ideas and preferences
and conditions the world over. Sufficient it is to say, that the
scheme of these Norse wheels is invariably that of a vertical
shaft, the lower end fitted with blades, buckets or paddles in a
horizontal zone by which the water makes the wheel turn around,
and the upper and carrying a runner or revolving mill stone
that works over a fixed or bedstone just beneath it. There is
some simple arrangement for raising or lowering the rig, so as
to vary the space between the stones and thereby grind fine or
coarse, and some simple jiggle or clapper device to feed the
grain from the hopper to the stones ; a crude small enclosed house
about eight to twelve feet square, with a roof, and that's all !
About the only variation of moment is the kind of blade or
paddle used on the shaft. A well preserved wheel and shaft, of
the very early Irish mills, had nineteen spoon or scoop shaped
bucket blades of oak, of which ten yet remained, when dug up.
In the mills of Madeira the buckets are not straight boards, few
in number, but some twenty, of curved form, held between wood
178 NORSE MILLS OF COLONIAL TIMES IN PENNSYLVANIA
rings ; and this is also the arrangement of the North CaroHna
wheels. But in Norway the blades are made of straight fiat
boards, six or eight in number, though sometimes ten or twelve,
a foot wide and perhaps eighteen inches long and one and one-
quarter inches thick, mortised into a heavy wood vertical shaft.
And in this region the boards are usually placed at an angle or
obliquely so that the flat side is squarely presented for the im-
pact of the water, which is fed to the wheel by a chute or trough
at an angle varying from twenty to forty degrees. In France
the design is both the few-bladed paddle form and the multiplex
curved bucket form. In Roumania again, in the Carpathian
mountain regions, mills are found virtually exact duplicates of
the Norway form. In the Shetland Islands, where one hundred
years ago it is said there were five hundred of these mills and in
the Orkney and Farce Islands, etc., the form is about the same
as in Norway with sometimes a double row of paddle boards,
and this is as would be expected, as it is about two hundred to
three hundred miles to the two first named island groups and
the north of Scotland (where these mills are also found) and the
introduction of these mills is attributed to Norse invaders in
early times.
While these mills are called "Norse Mills" by us, because we
so see them styled in what we read in the English prints, I ques-
tion the propriety of such designation. For they are no more
Norse than of any other country. As already stated they are
found in many countries, and the plain straight fiat blade form
in particular is not confined to the Norse Land or the Scandi-
navian peninsular. Roumania is a far cry; and I greatly doubt
whether the northern African or the central European or the
Chinese users (for they have such primitive wheel in great num-
bers in China as well) think of these simpler water wheels in
the least as Norse wheels ! And the Carolina wheel that adorns
the museum of the Bucks County Historical Society, might as
well be called a Madeira wheel or an Irish wheel or a French
roulet volant for it has the many small curved buckets and not
the few fiat wood paddle-blades of the Norse proper, design at all.
To my mind, these simple spin wheels — these earliest water
wheel forms, are merely such, and universal, of every name, as
locally styled and used in various languages and races the world
NORSE MILLS OF COLONIAL TIMES IN PENNSYLVANIA 179
over; and I view the term Norse wheel as only a local designa-
tion of the English people, who, generally using the more ad-
vanced overshot wheels, distinguished by the name of "Norse"
the crude small form of their near neighbors of the Scandinav-
ian countries.
In ending this description of what a Norse wheel is, it may be
well to note its fundamental difference from the modern turbine,
of which some think it an early form, because they both are spin-
wheels and both work upon vertical shafts. A Norse wheel is
an impact wheel only. It gets its power from the velocity and
impact of a shooting stream of water, coming from a nozzle or
chute opening, close to the blades. Only a few of the blades are
acted upon at once and the openings or waterways between the
blades are never entirely filled with water. The wheel is always
set above the tail water and the incoming water has a free exit
into the open air.
In a turbine on the contrary, the power comes not from im-
pact, but from the pressure and the reaction of the water. All
the buckets are acted upon at once. The waterways are always
filled with water under pressure and the wheel is set in the
water, not in the open, above it.
The difference in efficiency, with the same amount of water
and head, is very great. In the primitive impulse horizontal
wheels it is about twenty-five to forty per cent of the water's
energy, that is secured in power, while in a modern turbine wheel
it is two and one-half or three times as much or sixty to eighty-
five per cent. So that while these Norse wheels are the simplest
in form of all the water wheels they are also the least efificient.
In Scotland they are also called "tirl wheels", and it is interest-
ing to note that the entire class of these horizontal water spin
wheels, in which the water runs through from above, are also
known as or have been called "Danaides" ; so-called from the
Greek legend of the fifty daughters of Danaus, who slew their
husbands and in Hades later, were condemned to forever pour
water through sieves ! The general heft of these mills was small.
It does not take much power to turn a small grist stone, some-
times but little larger than an old hand quern. So we find that
the vertical shaft was at times but an iron rod or a light stick
of wood. The Carolina form has a wood shaft scarcelv more
180 NORSE MILLS OF COLONIAL TIMES IN PENNSYLVANIA
than six inches in diameter, I beHeve. On the other hand in
some of the rugged countries so to speak, a heavy crude con-
struction appears, as in Norway, where the vertical shaft is
usually made of a tree trunk of twelve to eighteen inches di-
ameter. This thickness, of course, better enables the mortising
of the blade boards. However, the mill stones carried are nearly
always three feet or less in diameter, thirty and twenty-seven
inches being common. The starting and stopping of these mills
was usually accomplished by a simple sluice arrangement for
switching the brook or run from its regular course outside the
little mill house, to the new channel or chute running through it,
or vice versa, effected by some boards stuck in the mud.- The
speed of these wheels is about a hundred revolutions a minute.
A step in advance in the design and efficiency of a Norse
wheel is to put it in a case or to enclose it when it then becomes
a "tub wheel", i. e. a wheel in a tub. And of this numerous in-
stances can yet be found along the coast of Maine, in which state,
in the past they have been extensively used, both in the interior
on streams and on the shore on the outlet of tidal ponds. Maine
is a lumber country and not a grain growing section and these
mills where noted by me were usually used to drive saw mills by
a bevel gear from the top of the vertical shaft. I noted several
in 1917 at East Sullivan, not far from Bar Harbor, and at Goulds-
boro, Machias and Whiting, along the Maine coast, in an auto-
mobile trip from Bangor to St. Andrews, Canada; as well as
near Oak Bay in New Brunswick, five or six miles out from
St. Stephens on the road to St. Andrews. Other wheels of this
character however drove gristmills in the vicinity of Castine,
Maine, where at Goose Falls stood a good example at a tidal
pond until burned a few years ago ; at Ame's mill pond, where a
small mill building still stands, though with stones and water
wheel gone ; in Lawrence Bay, where a pair of mill stones under
water, attest the one time presence of a gristmill. The same ap-
plies to the outlet of Salt Pond in the South Blue Hill region.
And there is not the slightest doubt in my mind as to the fact
that many of these old tub wheels can yet be found in that state.
One that I measured, still in good shape but not now in use,
though used to drive a wood-working factory, in even recent
years, is at East Orland on the half-mile water-way or outlet run
NORSE MILLS OF COLONIAL TIMES IN PENNSYLVANIA 181
from Toddy Pond, into Alamcosock Pond below, some eighteen
miles south from Bangor. This wheel is about four and one-
half feet diameter, works in a two-inch plank tub case about seven
feet in diameter, and has six plank blades, two inches thick by
about twenty inches deep and twenty-four inches long. These
blades are bolted on to six faces of the heavy shaft that is at that
part made hexagonal, instead of being mortised into the shaft ;
which hexagonal bolting arrangement makes a much easier and
strong construction. Each blade moreover, carries a small apron
of wood, bolted to it, on the lower edge of the near side face to
hold the water a little or prevent its passing through too fast. The
shaft is fourteen inches diameter and about seven or eight feet to
the bevel gear above. The wheel is carried on a sole tree or
sole-hurst that has no adjustment, as there is no grain grinding
variation. This is, in other words, a heavy sill that spans the
water exit or tail race. The inlet water comes into the wheel
through the usual chute, at an angle of about thirty degrees. I
believe this to be a typical wheel of the Maine district of the
past fifty to seventy-five years or so, and as stated, it is a Norse
wheel in a case forming a "tub wheel".
What Norse mills can we locate in our Pennsylvania history?
The records show that the Swedes first settled on the Delaware
river at what is now Wilmington, in Delaware, in 1638, and that
a later expedition from Sweden located in 1643 a few miles
further up on Tinicum Island, now Essington, in what is now
Delaware county, Pennsylvania ; and that this expedition, under
the command of Governor Printz, built a gristmill on Karakung,
later Mill, (Reed's map of Philadelphia, 1774), now Cobb's
Creek. The location is well established, at 73rd and Woodland
Avenue, Philadelphia, for as it is on the east bank, it is. in what
is now part of the latter city. A present dam, a successor dam
to the original, extends across the creek, a couple of hundred
feet or less, above the bridge over the creek, and immediately
below the dam is a ledge of rock upon which the mill stood.
Townsend Ward, in his article "A Walk to Darby" of 1879 (in
which he describes the things of interest en route), states that
there may yet be seen in the rock "the holes drilled in which
were inserted the supports" of the mill. Benjamin Ferris in his
Original Settlements on the Delaware," p. 7i (1846), makes the
182 NORSE MILLS OF COLONIAL TIMES IN PENNSYLVANIA
same statement. At the present time some of these holes can
yet be located to the tolerable satisfaction of the curious. The
premises are now part of the Cobb's Creek park system of the
City of Philadelphia, and within a few score of yards of the old
Blue Bell tavern, of 1766, and before, a prominent stand on the
old post road or Queen's highway or Darby road, the first road
between Chester and Philadelphia.
It is a moral certainty that the mill that the Swedes built here
was a Norse mill. For emigrants always, of course, logically
built in the new country the form of mill of the homeland or the
district whence they come. Penn, for instance, thirty-nine years
later brought English mill machinery and English mills started
with his coming. And in a study of American old time wind-
mills, we find that of 1710 at Somerville, Mass., a French type,
because built by Jean Mallet, a French emigrating Hugenot;
those at Detroit by the French settlers, the same ; the windmills
at Roanoke Island, North Carolina, and elsewhere, of the English
form, by English emigrants ; those in Illinois, of the 1820's and
'30's of the German form, by the influx of German settlers, etc.,
etc. So we can take it for granted, surely, that the water mill
built by the Swedes on the old rock on Cobb's Creek, was a
Scandinavian type of mill of the period of three hundred years
ago, in other words a "Norse" mill, in form. It is stated by sev-
eral historians that it was erected in 1643. but Amandus John-
son, who has gone into the history of the Swedish settlements on
the Deleware, more extensively than has anyone else, gives the
date as "the summer of autumn of 1646." This mill served the
colonists well. "It was a fine mill, which ground both line and
coarse flour, and was going early and late" and was far more
satisfactory than the windmill proceeding it, which was erected
by the Swedes at Christiana a dozen or so miles below the Tini-
cum colony in 1642, and of which it was said by Governor Printz
"It would never work and was good for nothing."
The records show that twenty-five years after its erection,
that is in 1671, the Cobb's creek or Karakung mill, had fallen
into decay ; and that upon complaint by the colonists to Governor
Lovelace, it was ordered that it be repaired and restored to the
public use. It is probable that this mill was used until about
1690 or 1700, or a period of about fifty years, when an English
NORSE MILLS OF COLONL\L TIMES IN PENNSYLVANIA 183
settler, named William Cobb, bought the property, and a later
English form of gristmill was erected a little lower down, on
what then became "Cobb's Creek" and it, together with the mills
at Darby, not far away, forever superseded it.
It has been thought by some that this mill built by Governor
Printz was the only Swedish mill built hereabouts. It was the
first one and the one of which we know the most but it was not
the only one. There were several others at least.
The Swedish control stated in 1638 and continued until wrested
from them by the Dutch in 1655 — seventeen years. The Dutch
then ran things on the Delaware for nine years— until 1644,
w^hen the English came along and ousted them. The Dutch, as
far as control went, were back again in 1672 but for two years
only. Then came the English again, under the Duke of York, for
eight years until the advent of Penn in 1682; a total of thirty-
nine years between the building of the Cobb's creek first Swedes
mill and Penn's time. It is pretty tolerably certain that the first
English mill, was that brought over by Penn in the "Welcome"
and erected by Caleb P'usey on Chester creek, in the present
Borough of Upland. The kind of mills built before his time,
are more or less surmise, but probability is a strong factor in
reaching conclusions ; and as the Swedes started, settled and
populated, and for the first time dominated that section ; and as
the later 'incursions of the Dutch and English, before Penn's
time, were fitful, brief and vicarious, the chances are that the
mills between 1646 and 1683, were mostly if not entirely Swedish
built, "Norse" type mills. Here are all the references to mills
that I have been able to locate in that period and you can reach
your own conclusions as to the probable nationality and design.
(a) Bishop, in his History of American Manufactures" of
1866, says that there were at least four saw mills in operation in
Pennsylvania before Penn's time. Also, that the Swedes had a
mill at Frankfort, before the coming of Penn.
(b) In the manuscript department of the Historical Society
of Pennsylvania, is an account by Charles H. Duffield, June 1907,
of an old Swedish mill built at Frankfort, thought there is but
scant description and the article is mostly a chain of title data.
The mill was located at Frankford Avenue and Mill Streets,
now Vandyke Street, in the earliest days. The property con-
184 NORSE MILLS OF COLONIAL TIMES IN PENNSYLVANIA
sisted of a tract of two hundred acres formerly granted to the
Swedes, and .was transferred to Penn in 1686, and was then
called an "old" mill. It came into the Duffield family in 1800 and
was burned in 1835. It was this old Swedes mill, 1777 a grist-
mill, that was the seat of the episode of Lydia Darrach ; when
after overhearing a plan of the British, then occupying Phila-
delphia, to make a raid on the patriot forces, she sped to this
mill outside the city, ostensibly to get flour, to give the informa-
tion to the patriots. Watson, in his Annals of Philadelphia, 73,
says that the Dufiheld mill at Frankford, was originally a Swed-
ish mill, but thinks it was a sawmill, rather than a gristmill.
(c) Johnson, 525, states that Governor Rising, of the Swed-
ish colony, in October 1654, found, "a serviceable little water fall
for a sawmill," on Naaman's Kill (which is the creek that flows
into the Delaware about at the circular line between Pennsyl-
vania and Delaware.)
(d) In 1658, soon after the surrender to the Dutch, Joost
Adriensen & Company petitioned for the right to build a saw and
gristmill at New Amstel (now Newcastle, Delaware), below the
Turtle Falls! which right was granted, as shown by the Docu-
mentary History of New York, 210-368.
(e) In the summer of 1662, a gristmill was built by John
Staeloop, Luyckas Pietersen, and Hans Black, at the Falls of
the Turtle Kill, Johnson 666.
(f) In 1661 the Dutch colony at New Amstel is credited in
the bookkeeping and accounts with New York with a pair of
mill stones.
(g) In 1662, in a list of articles purchased for the New
Amstel colony, there is named iron work for a saw mill and a
pair of mill stones. It may be that these last four items all refer
to the Turtle Creek mill.
(h) The "Records of the Court at Upland show that in 1678
"the Co'rt are of opinion that Capt'n Hans Moenson ought to
build a mill" on a creek later known as Little Mill Creek. This
is the creek that enters the Schuylkill just below the present
Woodlands cemetery and now replaced by a large city sewer.
On Scull and Heaps map of 1750 a mill is shown there and it is
likely that it was Moenson's.
(i) In 1679-80 the Court of Upland granted permission to
NORSE MILLS OF COLONIAL TIMES IN PENNSYLVANIA 185
one Peter Nealson, to take up a hundred acres to build a water
mill "on the west side of the Delaware".
(j) On September 17, 1689, seven years after Penn's time,
the members of the Council of the Colony journeyed to New-
castle, and on the way, from Philadelphia, presumably, "took a
view of Mill and Race Erected by Cornelius Empson" (Where-
of Complaint had been made by Petition from several of the in-
habitants of Chester County) {Col. Records, Vol. I, 301). The
name Cornelius Empson, seems rather more Swedish than Eng-
lish. The location I have not ascertained.
There can be no doubt but that there were several of these early
Swedish-built Norse mills, constructed along the Delaware be-
tween New Amstel (or Newcastle) and Christiania and Phila-
delphia, in the twenty or thirty years from 1638, in which the
Swedes were active ; and before Penn's time. Of these, the one
of 1646 on Cobb's creek, is the one best known and established,
and as first stated, it is the one that would seem to be beyond
doubt, the first mill of any sort to turn a wheel in what is now
the state of Pennsylvania. This fact then justifies our interest in
"What is a Norse mill?" and "Why is a Norse mill of interest
to us?"
Horse Hopples.
BY HENRY W. GROSS, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Doylestown Meeting, January 18, 1919.)
ON Tuesday last I was at Oak Lane, where I incidentally
mentioned to a young man that I was expected to read a
paper on the subject of "Horse Hopples." He said he
had never heard of them and desired to know what they were.
I soon found out that there was no use trying to get any in-
formation concerning them
from our young people, be-
cause they simply do not
know, neither did the editor
of Chamber's Encyclopaedia.
as he does not name, or re-
fer in any way to the term.
They did not live in the
horse-hopple age. So I will
ask you to think back with
me to an earlier generation ;
to the time when we had no
mowing machines, no bind-
ers of grain, no grain drills,
no fodder shredders, no
cream separators, no silos or
ensilage, no automobiles, no
wireless telegraph or tele-
phones and no areoplanes.
A time when there were but
few post and rail fences but
mainly stake and rider fences
and stone walls. To the time
when the men and boys
were commissioned every
spring, with grubbing hoes in hand, to go around every field and
repair the fences, fastening the stakes and replacing the worn
HORSE HOPPLES 187
out riders and the top rail. (Here Mr. Gross started quite a dis-
cussion by asking the audience whether any of them had done
that.)
Think back with me to the time when horses and cattle were
not stabled, not kept-up at night during the summer season,
but were turned out in the open field to forage until early dawn
the next day. Now to get you interested in this out-of-date
subject, I want to ask you a few questions leading up from the
simple to the more complex, from the known to the unknown.
How many of you present today, in this audience, have seen a
goose-yoke, or goose-yokle? How many of you have seen a hog-
yoke, and why is it called a yokle? (Here Mr. Gross exhibited
goose and hog yokes which brought out an interesting discus-
sion.) Who of you has seen a cow's head or neck tied or chained
down to one of her fore feet ? Why and how was that done ?
Who has seen a post or part of a rail hanging on to a bull's neck,
and why was that done ? and why did it extend out in front
of the bull? Who has seen a board or a hood over the eyes of
a bovine and fastened to the horns with twine ? Who has seen
a cow's hind legs strapped together, or a rope or strap tied
around her body in front of her udder, or a rail fastened to her
stall at one end and at the other end to a post or a ring, so as to
crowd the cow against the wall, and why was it done? Who has
seen the knee of one front leg bent and a strap or loop pushed
over it so that the cow had to stand on three legs instead of four?
In almost every herd of cattle there is a "leader" that has
learned how to open a rail or two at the bars, or to get her
head through the fence, or pretend to be rubbing some itchy
spot, when in reality this was done only to get a rail or two
out of the way so as to make it easy to crawl through or push
the fence over. This accomplished it is surprising to see how
soon every animal in the field knows of the opening, and with
curled tail hurries to get across and taste new and better or
forbidden pastures.
You may have seen a few sheep in a field, and one of them
with a front and a hind foot drawn a little closer together than
nature intended, and were tied with a light rope or a strap.
Why was that necessary? Simply to prevent the sheep from
scaling the stone wall surrounding the pasture lot. This rope,
188 HORSE HOPPLES
Strap or string, to which I have referred is the hopple idea,
though not the link-iron type you see here today. This article
discarded and thrown on the scrap-heap some years ago can
scarcely be called a tool. It is no machine, no plaything, no
rattle, though the links do rattle when in use. (Here Mr. Gross
exhibited several hopples from the museum collection, and ex-
plained their different types, their locks, etc.) These hopples
have now become obsolete, there appears to be no use for any-
thing like them now. I suppose the idea of their use was
prompted when there were but few fences, and the animals were
turned loose at night, and their movements were restricted by
something of this kind, so as to give them a wider range than
when tethered to a stake or a tree, and yet not to be miles away at
the dawn of the next day.
Horse hopples of these types, as used some fifty or sixty years
ago, may have been to restrict the movements of some specially
spirited or vicious horse, yet in the main they were used in
order that the farmers could be reasonably certain of finding their
animals the following morning when they were needed to start
their day's work. You will of course understand that in those
days it was customary to unharness the horses, feed them with
grain, and then turn them out in the pasture-field to forage for
the night and to rest towards morning, so as to be ready and at
hand for another day's plowing, harrowing or hauling. But it
often happened that when a farmer's boy went for his horses
early in the morning, they could not be found in the pasture-
fields, having strayed away during the night, probably to be found
in some better pasture, often doing damage, and partly ruining
his neighbor's crops ; this stirred up strife and enmity among
neighbors, and moreover the delay in securing the "critters" for
several hours, valuable time was wasted. The farmer's boy
came back tired, took more time to explain and relate his ex-
perience, with a report of the damage done. This took more
time and as a result only a meagre day's work was done. Fences
destroyed by the roaming of the animals had to be repaired. As
"necessity is the mother of invention", here is where the horse-
hopple came in.
What does the horse-hopple do? Have you ever noticed the
movements of a pacing horse, and how he differs from trotting
HORSE HOPPLES 189
horses? The pacing horse swings his body first to one side then
to the other alternately. The hopple compels a pacing move-
ment. It embarrasses and interferes with free action, with the
result that the animal's forward movement is slow, and besides
it prevents him from jumping fences. He stays within the en-
closure and can usually be found when wanted in the morning.
Tricks of fancy always have a leader, get him and you will soon
have the whole bunch.
INFORMATION OF Q. A. FRETZ, TOLL GATHERER AT DUBLIN TOLLGATE.
In Bedminster township during the early fifties horses were
hoppled with chain hopples (such as Mr. Gross has describeed).
With quiet horses the hopple was fastened from the right fore-
leg to the right hind-leg, but with wilder horses it was attached
from the right fore-leg to the left-hind leg, or vice-versa. The
horses were at pasture over night in fenced fields, and hoppling
was done to prevent them from jumping fences and straying
away or returning home during the night, at a time when every-
body was asleep.
Basket Making.
BY GRIER SCHEETZ, BETHLEHEM, PA.
(Doylestown Meeting, May 31, 1919.)
BASKET making as an art has been known even through
the misty ages of long ago. Baskets made of willow,
rushes, straw and even wood-chips, interwoven with linen
cord or hickory splints, have been made and used from time im-
memorial. The Israelites were commanded to make an offering of
the first fruits of the earth to the Almighty in a basket. Many
of the baskets used by rich Jews on such occasions were made
of gold, silver or brass, and were returned to the offerers by the
priests, but those used by the majority of people were made of
barked willow and were retained by the priests. Moses, the
great law giver, as a babe was found floating upon the bosom of
the river Nile in a basket made of rushes, while the Hebrew spies
at Jericho were let down from the top of the wall of the city
in a basket by Rahab the harlot. The process of basket making
is simple and requires few tools. The art appears to have been
known among the rudest people, even among the aboriginies of
Van Dieman's Land. The woven straw basket is made of se-
lected rye straw, dampened in water, then woven or plaited by
hand or passed through a tin or leather tube to keep it of uni-
form thickness, and to keep it thus, more straw was filled in the
opposite end of the tube. The basket is started from the bottom,
making the smallest circle possible, which is either stitched with
linen cord or hickory splints, using three or four turns over the
straw as it comes through the tube and then one stitch in the
second strand, firmly drawing both together until the bottom
for the basket had become the required size. The next strand
was placed on edge and firmly stitched to the bottom of the
basket. This continued until the proper height had been reached,
when the rim was put on and the handle fastened, stitching on
or wrapping the body of the basket to the rim with linen cord or
hickory splints. Hats, bread baskets, sewing baskets, bee-hives
were made of straw in the same way. I am informed by Peter
Stauffer, librarian at the Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa., that
BASKET MAKING 191
his father, Jacob Staufifer, and his grandfather, Charles Stauffer,
who was born in 1786, and Hved to the age of ninety years were
both basket-makers, and when a boy he helped them in their
work of basket making. Peter Stauffer is now seventy years of
age, and to him I am indebted for much of the information which
I have gathered on basket making. His grandfather, with the
families of Sloyers, Seiferts and Reichards, settled on what was
known as Swabian Hill, a spur of South Mountain, or as the
Pennsylvania-Germans called it "Schwova Barick". This place
is in Lower Saucon township, Northampton county, about one
mile north of the Bucks county line. Most of the settlers of that
neighborhood were immigrants from Swabia, Germany, and
many of them were basket makers.
While it was a privilege to Peter Stauffer, when a boy, to
assist both his grandfather and father to finish the baskets, he
also learned the treatment required of the material of which the
baskets were constructed. His grandfather would go into the
forest and select the finest young hickory trees he could find,
about six inches in diameter. These he would cut into lengths
of from three to four feet and then place them into a pit filled
with prepared clay and w^ater. This hickory was allowed to re-
main in the pit for months or until, by the action of the solution
it became soft and pliable, when it would be split with wedges,
and then shaved into splints with a drawing-knife often as thin
as a sheet of paper, the annealing made it so tough that it could
not be broken. This also was the kind of splint (but of smaller
sizes) used to sew the straw baskets. The splint baskets were made
as follows : First, the handle and rim were made, the handle
running around the bottom of the basket and the rim held in
position by a small nail or wooden peg driven through the handle,
which held both rim and handle in place. The splints contained
in the baskets varied from one-half to one inch in width, ac-
cording to the size of the baskets. The splints were all tapered
to a sharp point, the center splint being the longest, and each fol-
lowing splint was shorter. The pointed ends were then brought
up to the handle and firmly woven together around the handle
with the thin splints shaved from the treated hickory wood. The
body of the basket was well secured and made strong and firm by
the plaiting of the splints. The bottoms of the baskets were
192 BASKET MAKING
fortified by two extra pieces of half inch wood, to strengthen and
protect them against the special wear to which the bottoms were
subjected. Willow baskets were made in practically the same
way, except that the young wnllows or switches were cut in early
spring, tied in bundles like wheat and placed upon end, from
whence they were taken to the shop or shed and the bark stripped
off by drawing the switches between two knives set upon end,
the top space being a little wider through which the switches
were drawn. When the bark was stripped from them they
were ready for using. A,s a boy I remember basket-makers carry-
ing a large number of different sized baskets upon their backs,
peddling them from house to house and offering them for sale.
Notes on Basket Making
BY DR. HENRY C. MERCER.
WILLOW BASKETS MADE BY A. BETHTRAIN.
The following information was obtained from Mr. A. Beth-
train of Dublin, Bucks county, Pa., August 2, 1919.
Mr. Bethtrain w^as born in Alslben, Saxony, where he learned
his trade. He has been in this country thirty-six years, coming
here in 1883 when twenty years old. At the present time he has
an "ozier holt" or field of German willows growing on the farm
of Abraham Gross near Griers Hill, Dublin, which he planted
several years ago. He uses Welsh or German willows of one
year's growth for the baskets and two years growth for the
handles. He uses rattan from the Philippine Islands, or China
or other near east places for the bottoms of huckster's baskets,
also for large baskets and for reinforcing. Willow shoots can
be cut from old trees or pollards but it is better to have an ozier
holt. A visit to his patch showed suckers a year or two old, but
no thick stems or trunks. 'The stumps were bristling with stems
of previous cuttings level with the ground. He said there w^as
a willow nursery at Edgely on the Delaware river between Bristol
and Tullytown, Pa., containing twenty acres of young shoots,
also that lots of willows were grown and made into baskets at
BASKET MAKING 193
Syracuse, N. Y., Baltimore, Md., and in Illinois nurseries. Mr.
Bethtrain says he made nothing but willow baskets either in Ger-
many or in America. He sells his product in Philadelphia and
locally. He said that making splint baskets was a different trade,
but he knew that in Germany they were made of European white
ash and in America of white oak and hickory. Oak is the best
of all if carefully selected and without knots. White oak baskets
last longer than hickory ones.
For basket making willow sprouts or shoots are cut in March,
tied in bundles likes sheaves, placed in water two or three inches
deep in a marsh until June, by which time they have grown
about two inches more and the bark is green, soft and tender and
peels readily. They must not be placed too deep in the marsh
water else it darkens the wood. The peeling of bark by ma-
chinery has been tried but proved a failure. A clamp or vise
called a "brake" tightened with a wedge in the bottom, then
stood upright in a bench, the willow shoots, fresh from the
marsh, are pulled through between the jaws of the clamps, first
one end and then the other, thus peeling or stripping them free
of the green bark at two pulls. Mr. Bethtrain worked for Michael
Frohman near Hilltowm Church in 1884 and 1885. Mr. Froh-
man was then seventy-five years old and had made willow baskets
for years. The clamps presented to this society by Mr. Bethtrain,
were used by him for carrying cans of milk to the creamery on
his back. Frames are used for forming the willow baskets,
square ones for square baskets and round ones for round bottom
baskets. Small fine baskets are made of split willow. He first
splits the end of the willow rod for an inch or so with a knife and
then separates it with a tool made of ivory, bone or wood, called
a "cleaver". These tools are made three or four sided so as to
split or divide the willow into that number of strands. These are
then dipped into a tub of water to prevent breaking and then run
through a "shaver", a small plane-like tool which shaves the
strands smooth and even. A small leather guard is placed on the
thumb, holding the strand down against the plane. A four split
cleaver is seldom used as it makes the strands too fine for
ordinary use.
The set of basket making tools brought to the museum was
owned by Michael Frohman of Hilltown and later used by Mr.
194 BASKET MAKING
Bethtrain. Another tool called a "hammer", a flat bar of iron
tapering towards the handle, with a hole in the end, is used to
hammer the strands between the ribs of the basket, and the
crooked can be bent straight by running them into the hole of the
hammer and twisting in the right way. This tool, used by Mr.
Bethtrain, was brought from Germany. The shaver mentioned
above is called "hobel" in Germany, and the knife is adjustable
with thumb screw to regulate the size of the finished strand.
The thumb guard is always of leather, these two in the museum
were used by Michael Frohman for many years. In forming the
baskets Mr. Bethtrain used a board about sixteen inches square
upon which having placed the already woven bottom of the basket
, he next drove four pointed thin iron rods at the four corners,
the top of which rods held the frame or form, around which he
then wove the basket. In order to turn this conveniently while
working, the board was perforated with a center hole, through
which, and through the wicker bottom placed thereon, he drove
a pointed heavy awl or bodkin into a still larger knee board
about two by three feet, which rested on his knee while working.
This enabled him to conveniently turn the basket around as he
proceeded. The small board revolving upon the large one thus
pivoted under it. Some basket-makers, however, dispense with
the knee board. Mr. Bethtrain may be the only wicker basket-
maker in Bucks county at this time. He works in a rather large
modern frame shop between his barn and house, with vestibule,
workroom and garret. The workroom is heated with a stove.
SPLINT BASKETS MADE BY PETER WEIRBACH.
The following notes were made by Dr. Mercer, August 2, 1919,
upon visiting the shop of Peter Weirbach, near Mountain House,
Haycock, Bucks county. Pa.
The white oak used is cut in November and December, con-
sisting of little shoots cut close to the ground or suckers from
four to eight inches in diameter. These are cut in lengths of four
feet then quartered. Each quarter is placed upright in a trestle
made of a forked tree-trunk such as is used for splitting shingles.
The split quarters are then split into thin strips with a "frow".
The strips are then placed in a "shoeing-horse", and squared up
with a drawing knife then chisel or start a strip one-half inch
CASKET MAKING 195
thick and separate with the hands the full length of the quarter
piece and then reduce these strips still more by starting with a
knife and separating as above until almost the proper thickness
for the basket. Run them through the basket-maker's shave, a
steel blade fastened to a wooden block and regulated according
to thickness desired by turning a thumb-screw, thus shaving the
split smooth and thin. Then make a round edge or rim, nailing
handle on to rim which overlaps and is nailed together at the bot-
tom with two or three wrought nails, clinched. Start to make at
one side against the handle, continuing around to the other side
against the handle, using heavy shaped ribs. Then weave the
smaller strips around the ribs. The strips, before platting are
boiled for half-an-hour to make them more pliable and tough.
The heavy ribs and handle are not boiled. No special shaving-
horse is necessary. ' The shaver is the only special tool used. An
awl is used to perforate strands for inserting thin wrapping
strands around edge, etc. Mr. Weirbach made round bottomed
handled baskets and flat bottomed bushel baskets with and with-
out handles. He always used white oak.
The house Mr. Weirbach worked in was built of logs about
sixty years ago, probably by his father or earlier. It is about
eighteen by thirty feet, with two rooms down stairs and a garret
above. The one entrance door is in the room nearest to the house.
It is not heated and no fireplace was ever constructed there.
There is a small brick flue in the middle for smoke of a small
ten-plate stove in the shop wing nearest the house. The par-
tition is made of boards. Shop has one window on the north
side, two on the east, and two on the south side. The ceiling is
of hewn beams, very wide apart. Stepladder to garret in shop
with sliding trap-door overhead. The work-bench stands on the
east side of work-shop. Mandrel and turning lathe before north
window back of stove. His brother's shoemaker's bench and tools
are near the door by the window in the southwest corner. The
logs of the house are squared, notched and champered, sawed
square corners. Slats nailed across ceiling-beams to hold tools,
stick, etc. Drawing knife horse in shop. Frow in entrance
room. Shop quite dark, vines obstructing light from windows.
Did not examine structure of log shop. Shingled with riven
shingles made by Peter Weirbach and lathed and plastered with
196 BASKET MAKING
clay inside of shop. Cut nails used of which one specimen was
obtained. Built originally for a shop and not as a dwelling. No
sign of ancient pottery remaining.
Mr. Weirbach and his sister reluctantly sold us five baskets,
one large and four small ones, at high prices for the museum.
His sister thought he was too old to make more on order during
the coming winter. The five baskets bought and placed in the
museum are as follows : Museum No. 16359, $5.00 ; Nos. 16360,
16361, 16362, at $1.50 each, and No. 16363 at $2.00.
COMMENT. BY DR. B. F. FACKENTHAL, JR.
When I was a small boy attending public school (1857 to
1866) at Monroe in Durham township I daily passed by the basket
making shop of Jacob Gray at Monroe. I stopped in his shop
hundreds of times. He was a kindly, genial old man always
ready with a story to tell us boys. He made baskets of the butts
of white oak trees of which he always kept a good stock on
hand. I have no recollection of seeing any butt less than about
six inches in diameter. I remember quite well that he bought
and cut a number of young white oak trees from my grand-
father's woods. He did not use any material for baskets other
than oak, but he did use hickory for making splint brooms. His
operation was very much like Mr. Weirbach's operations de-
scribed by Dr. Mercer. He always quartered the butts, and then
with special tools split the quarters into splints. Much of his
time seemed to be taken up with his drawing-knife and shaving
horse preparing the splints for weaving. His shop was often
full of shavings. To watch him prepare the splints and weave
them into baskets was to me always most interesting. He made
baskets of many kinds and sizes, but his principal trade was mak-
ing feed baskets for the boatmen on the Delaware Division canal,
which flowed close by his shop. These feed baskets were strapped
around the heads of the mules, who were required to eat their
oats from them while towing the boats. It was said that he
made the very best quality of baskets put upon the market, and
the boatment often had to wait their turns to have their
orders filled.
Early Pennsylvania Pottery.
BY WILLIAM E. MONTAGUE, NORRISTOWN, PA.
(Doylestown Meeting, May 31, 1919.)
THE richly ornamented pottery of civilized nations, which
for two centuries or more, preceded the manufacture of
porcelain, possesses a peculiar fascination for collectors and
students of ceramic art. On account of the boldness of treat-
ment and the quality of manly vigor, it shows the first awaken-
ing of the artistic instinct among a simple hearted people, who
in the engrossing struggle for subsistence had little opportunity
for improving their surroundings.
The history of pottery, if it should be written, would be as
old as the history of man. Baking clay and making vessels is
one of the first useful arts in the history of all peoples, savage
as well as civilized. Clay, mingled with sand and wet with water,
can be moulded into any desired shape. Baking expels the
water and infuses the sand and clay, and the result is a compact
substance. This can be painted with any color that will not
change from heat, and when baked, the forms will become deco-
rated pottery. This art, known as the ceramic art, affords op-
portunity for the modeller and the painter, and has been practiced
by all nations in all times. It furnishes a most important illustra-
tion of the taste, education and comparative civilization of the
dififerent peoples. The decorations placed upon it, such as pic-
tures, mottoes, names and records of various kinds, makes it of
the highest importance in historic art. In all nations, where civili-
zation has reached a high grade, the best artists have been em-
ployed in the decoration of pottery and porcelain as well as the
best modellers in producing forms of beauty, thus uniting the
work of the painter and the sculptor. The art takes high rank
among the fine arts, hence great attention has been paid to it by
archeologists and lovers of the beautiful. The color of all pottery
depends upon the ingredients of the clay.
Pottery is of two kinds, soft and hard. Soft pottery yields
easily to the point of a knife, while hard resists it. Soft pottery
melts at a much lower temperature than hard. The common
198 EARLY PENNSYLVANIA POTTERY
building brick is the simplest illustration of soft pottery while
the fire brick is the simplest illustration of hard pottery. In the
study of the cermaic art, soft pottery is usually divided. First,
unglazed pottery, the result of baking clay without surface var-
nish or glaze. Second, lustrous pottery, a name applied to a large
class of objects which have a shining surface, produced by a thin
varnish or coating, which reflects light, but is sometimes perme-
able to water. Third, glazed pottery, which is covered with a
thick shining surface produced by the use of lead or by the
union of alkaline substances with lead in the clay. Fourth,
enamelled pottery, covered with a coating of enamel in which tin
is employed, hence the word "Stanniferous", and which being
baked receives a surface decoration of dififerent substance from
the pottery, and more or less thick which is of a vitrous character,
resisting acid and not permeable to water.
The larger part of all ancient pottery is included in the first
three classes. Most modern pottery, Italian, French, German,
Dutch and other ware known as "Majolica" and "Fayence" is
soft pottery enamelled. Fayence is a term derived from Fayenza,
an Italian city where decorative pottery was largely made in the
sixteenth century, and in the present general sense includes all
pottery enamelled and decorated with color.
The term "ceramic", includes all works in pottery, porcelain
and stone ware, and is derived from the Greek word, signifying
potter's clay, earthen vases, etc. Porcelain, like pottery, is a pro-
duct of clay and sand, but the clay is of a class that with the ad-
dition of other substances produces a translucent body. Pottery
is always opaque ; porcelain always translucent ; pottery breaks
with a rought fracture, exhibiting the color of clasp ; porcelain
breaks with a vitrous fracture, white and clean.
PENNSYLVANIA POTTERY.
Among the forms of utensils and other objects produced in
Eastern Pennsylvania were cooking pots, with and without lids,
and usually with two handles. They were glazed on the inside
and often also on the outside. Applebutter pots, flower pots,
cake, jelly and other molds, jugs, jars (both spherical and cylindri-
cal usually with lids and with or without handles), coffee pots,
sugar bowls, cream pitchers, tea cannisters, mugs, liquid meas-
EARLY PENNSYLVANIA POTTERY 199
ures, vegetable and meat plates, pie plates, bowls, platters, soup
dishes, large circular pans, (usually with sloping sides and flat
bases), fancy dishes or trays, ink stands, sand shakers, stove
foot-rests, tobacco pipes, tobacco jars, shaving basins, flower
holders or vases, toys, figures of animals, birds, whistles, etc.
Also earthen barrels for holding water, churns, and roof tiles.
Most of these articles were made simply of red clay and glazed
with red lead, and were used for all imaginable purposes in the
household.
The introduction of tin and other wares gradually supplanted
the work of the early potter, and but one or two shops yet re-
main, and these are devoted largely to the manufacture of
flower pots, which are now produced by machinery.
SLIP DECORATIVE WARE.
Among the earliest ornamented ware of Europe was that which
is known as Slip Decorative Ware, which consisted of two classes,
slip-traced or slip-painted and slip-engraved, scratched or sgraf-
fito ware. Slip is made of a clay different from the body of the
pottery to which it is applied. It is produced by grinding suitable
clay in a quern or between two stones and is then thinned with
water to the desired consistency, usually like batter or cream ;
it is of a lighter tint than the coarse clay of the pottery to which
it is applied, the pottery being generally of a dark orange or red
color. Slip tracing consists of trickling this liquid clay or "slip",
through one or sometimes two or three quills attached to a little
cup over the surface of the unburned ware to produce the deco-
rative design. Slip engraving consists in covering the ware with
a thin coating of slip, through which the ornamental designs are
scratched with a pointed instrument to show the darked clay be-
neath. In a general way it may be said that true slip decoration
is usually distinguished by a light colored ornamentation on a
darker ground, while sgraffito ware is recognized by the dark
design on a white or yellow field. In the former the decorations
generally appear in slight relief, and in the latter they are im-
pressed or intalglioed. It is interesting to note that in many
of the early English slip-traced and scratched pieces, the princi-
pal decorative motif is the tulip, which fact suggests the possi-
bility that the art of slip decoration was introduced into England
200 EARLY PENNSYLVANIA POTTERY
from Germany. The use of this flower in ceramic embelHsh-
ments probably originated in Persia and later spread to conti-
nental Europe. In Pennsylvania sgraffito ware was first made
as early as 1733, as is indicated by an interesting example in the
collection of Mr. George H. Banner, Manheim, Pa., which is
engraved with that date.
It is more than possible that for several years previous to that
time, the transplanted art had flourished in this country. It is
certain that slip decoration was in vogue in certain parts of
Gremany, notably in Saxony, more than two hundred years ago,
and when the first Germans settled in Pennsylvania they brought
the art with them and established it as a new process of the
ceramic manufacture in the states.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, slip decorative
ware was made to a considerable extent in certain localities in
England, but the early English potters do not seem to have pur-
sued this branch of their calling to any extent on this side of
the Atlantic.
The reason for this is obvious, while the English came from
many sections previous to the full development of this art at
home and scattered over vast territory in this country, the Ger-
mans arriving at a later date, fresh from a section where slip
decorative ware was at its height, established a community of
their own in Eastern Pennsylvania, isolated from all extraneous
influences, and continued to ply their homely arts as they had
learned them in the old world.
These pioneer potters erected numerous small pot works for
the manufacture of such wares as were needed to supply the
simple wants of the people. Each local pottery seems to have
been supported by the patronage of relatives, neighbors and
friends of the proprietor, or by sales which were held in neigh-
boring towns, and as the trade was confined almost entirely to
the limited section occupied by the settlers, it is not surprising
that these German-American productions have only recently at-
tracted attention.
The commonest kind of slip decoration can be seen in the
zigzag lines frequently met with on the pie plates of commerce
and are true slip decoration. Slip decoration in its primitive
state is now a lost art in the United States. It flourished, princi-
EARLY PENNSYLVANIA POTTERY 201
pally in Pennsylvania, for nearly a century and a half. Its
decadence commenced with the advent of tin and when the
cheaper grades of white crockery began to be introduced the
production of the early potter ceased. Slip decoration was the
forerunner of the modern art of painting on the unbaked ware
with colored clay as exemplified in the Rookvvood pottery of the
present day. Its highest development is found in the Pate-sur-
pate process as practiced by Mr. M. L. Solon at the Minton fac-
tory in England, who is recognized today as the greatest ex-
ponent of this beautiful art.
PORCELAINS IN AMERICA.
In 1825. "one Tucker, who was the son of a Quaker china
shopkeeper on Market street, between Ninth and Tenth, Phila-
delphia, took over the old waterworks at Twenty-third and Chest-
nut streets, and started in a small way to produce artistic porce-
lain." His work was recognized speedily as the best of its kind
in the United States. The Franklin Institute awarded him
several medals as a tribute to his skill. His porcelain was com-
pared favorably with the Sevres product, and an effort was made,
during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, to obtain a Federal
subsidy of several thousand dollars. The president acknowledged
the receipt of the gift of Tucker's ware, but declined to favor
the subsidy. He marveled at its excellence and said it was the
equal of Sevres. Judge Joseph Hemple became a partner of
Tucker and a larger plant was secured at the southwest corner
of Seventh and Chestnut streets. French artists were brought
over and close copies of the Sevres product were made. The
best ware was produced from 1833 to 1838. Hemple associated
a number of other Pennsylvanians in the enterprise and obtained
a charter from the legislature under the corporate name of the
American Porcelain Company. Their koalin was obtained from
Chester County, Pa., their feldspar from New Castle, Del., and
their clay from Perth Amboy, N. J. Authority was given to the
corporation to import the best artists, and many articles of artis-
tic porcelain were produced, but in 1838 the business was
discontinued.
The ornamented plates and other pieces both slip and sgraffito
202 WELL-CAVES OF BUCKS COUNTY
which you have before you today, ^ were not made commercially,
but were usually made for presents, the husband to his wife, the
apprentice to his employer, or the lover to his lady. Many of
the decorated pieces found today, belong to the heirs and rela-
tives of the potters, some of these have been handed down from
generation to generation, and it is rarely that some of them find
their way to museums or the cabinets of the antiquarian.
1 Mr. Montigue illustrated this paper by exhibiting many interesting and
valuable specimens from his large and valuable collection.
Well Caves of Bucks County.
BY MISS BELLE VANSANT, NEWTOWN, PA.
(Doylestown Meeting, May 31, 1919.)
MANY years before the bacteriologist had informed us that
a house-fly carries a quarter of a million bacteria upon
soles of its feet, or that each drop of fresh milk under
ordinary conditions contains 1,500 bacteria, which after forty-
eight hours in a temperature of sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit,
increases to one billion, or before Pasteur had taught the art of
making bacteria soup, the housewife and dairyman had their
own troubles in keeping meat from spoiling, butter from melting,
and milk from turning sour. Without knowing the scientific
reason, they had learned by experience, that in order to preserve
provisions and milk during the summer months they must have
a place where the temperature could be kept at least below sixty
degrees, and in order to accomplish this they resorted to a num-
ber of devices. If today you visit a Bucks county farm house
of the period of 1750 to 1830, where modern devices have been
introduced, you will probably find the whole series, cellar, well,
well-cave, ice house, spring house, spring-cave, cooking tank,
patent cooler and refrigerator.
My subject today, however, is the well-cave, also known as
the vault, milk-vault or ground-cellar. Of these I have visited
about thirty, and have found no two exactly alike in architectural
style. When one sees an ancient stone farm house, ofif in a field.
WELL-CAVES OF BUCKS COUNTY 203
remote from the public highway, we of course surmise that
there must be a spring of water there, and we are usually cor-
rect ; but it did not fall to the lot of all of our forefathers to pur-
chase springy land, in which case the well-caves had to be re-
sorted to. I shall not attempt, in this short paper, to describe in
detail the many different caves that I have examined, but will
confine my descriptions to but a few of them, and then tell of
some of the variations.
The first model of a cave that I will describe, is on the farm
of Mrs. Joseph Watson on the pike between Newtown and Lang-
horne. That part of this cave which is above ground is a stone
structure seven feet long by five feet wide at the base, and four
feet high at the peak. On one of the slanting sides is a wood-
en door with iron hinges, the opposite slant is almost covered
by one large flat stone. There is no mound above ground, but
beyond is the well and pump, and from the mouth of the cave
to the end of the well is about thirty-five feet. Near the middle
of this space is a brick chimney three feet high and two feet
square, covered by a flat stone, and with air passages underneath.
From the door of the cave a straight flight of eighteen stone
steps, each nine inches deep extends to the vault below. Most
of the steps are made of one stone, others have two stones, all
have masonry underneath. The sides of the stairw^ay and the
slanting roof above are constructed of masonry. At the bot-
tom of the stairs there is a slat door, on each side of which there
are recesses in the wall about twelve and eight inches, and about
twelve inches deep. The vault itself is fourteen feet long by
twelve feet wide and seven feet high, this also has masonry sides
and roof, and a flagstone floor. On each of the long sides there
are projections upon which, at one time, rested board shelves.
At the far end of the vault is a smaller door four feet by two
feet, which opens into a passageway two and one-half feet high
by two feet wide, which is the entrance, through a passageway
two and one-half feet deep leading into the well. On each side
of this are also stone projections upon which rests a large flat
stone. This vault is near the barn and connected with the barn
well. It is nicely whitewashed, and in it the present tenant keeps
his milk-cooler and cream separator.
On the Obadiah Willett, later Jonathan Knight and now Wil-
204 WELL-CAVES OF BUCKS COUNTY
Ham R. Wallhiser farm, near Feasterville, is a two-roomed cave,
the largest I have seen. The slanting double doors are on a
level with the basement or cellar kitchen, and against a stone wall
supporting a mound above, the top of which is reached by six
stone steps. From the lower level twelve stone steps lead to the
first room of the vault which is fourteen and one-half feet long
by ten and one-half feet wide and seven and one-half feet high,
with an arched roof ceiling, in which two ventilators may be
seen. On one side of this room is an alcove four and one-half
by three feet, at the rear of which is the opening into the well,
four feet high by three feet wide, extending through a wall
three feet thick. This passageway is raised about a foot above
the floor level and is somewhat V-shaped, and only about eigh-
teen inches wide at the well entrance. Near this is another
opening three feet wide leading into a second room which is
nine feet by seven feet, with one ventilator in the ceiling.
Suspended from the ceiling of each room are four large hooks,
probably for supporting hanging shelves, and on each side, near
the well, are niches in the wall eight by twelve inches. The
board shelves on both sides of the room are supported by wooden
pegs. The entire floor is covered with large white flagstones.
The gate at the bottom of the steps has disappeared, but the
hinges remain. On the outside, above and beyond the wall, is
quite an extensive mound, from which arise three brick chimneys,
the external part of the ventilators. In 1828 Obadiah Willett tore
down the old dwelling house at this place and built the present
mansion, but just how long previous to this the cave existed can-
not now be determined.
The third example which I wish particularly to describe, is on
the Russell Watson farm on the Feasterville road. It is a two-
storied cave of a distinct type. The outside door opens into a
stone structure, covered by a slanting shingle roof. At the en-
entrance are two doors, one solid and the other made of slats.
Eight steps lead to the first landing. This room is eight and
one-half feet by nine feet, eight feet high on one side and four-
teen feet high on the other. Two windows eighteen by twenty-
three inches open into this room. The walls are eighteen inches
thick. On the high side there is a large swinging shelf, and
lower down stone projections upon which rests a board shelf. A
WELL-CAVES OF BUCKS COUNTY 205
flight of seven steps leads to the lower room which extends un-
derneath the ground, and is the real cave. This room is seven
feet by twelve feet and seven feet high, with arched roof. At
the back of this, through a wall three and one-half feet thick,
there is a passage opening into the well. Doors, at one time,
probably separated the upper and lower rooms, and also the en-
trance to the well, but only part of the hinges remain. There is
one ventilator in the lower cave from which a stone chimney ex-
tends to the mound above.
So far as the structure above ground is concerned, no two
caves are alike. Some have a grassy mound with a stone wall
at each end ; some are walled at one end and slope to a level at
the other end. The entrance of caves also varies, often it is
through a door in the wall, either on a level or down two or
three steps. In one cave six outside steps were at right angles
to the door and inside steps. Often there is nothing showing
above ground but double doors lying flat on the ground. A cave
of that kind may be seen at the Turk Hotel near Doylestown.
At Neshaminy Falls there is a cave underneath the flagstone floor
of a back porch, with an entrance in what appears to be a closet.
At the Shoe farm a very extensive cave is under the smoke house.
In towns, caves frequently have their entrances through the
cellars of the houses, the cavities and wells being outside the
foundations, either with or without mounds. In two instances
the caves extend to the streets and the pumps must have been
where the pavements now are, probably town pumps. The stair
ways are usually straight but some are winding and others have
landings part w^ay down and then turn at right angles, some have
open spaces at the landings. The nitches in the walls are of
great variety, both in size and number. Shelves made of boards
are most common, although a few have stone shelves. Some
have stone corner pieces somewhat resembling stone sinks. In
some cases stone ledges, about five feet from the floors, serve as
shelves. These ledges were formed by building out the entire
lower walls to thicknesses of about ten inches. In the vault at
Jenks Hall, later the home of William Barnsley, there were
marble slabs on each side of the cave. This vault unlike most
of them was built next to an ice house instead of a well. There
is also an interesting transition in the vaulted spring house, such
206 WELL-CAVES OF BUCKS COUNTY
as may be seen at the Washington Headquarters house in New-
town or the Wilson Woodman farm near Wycombe.
In the days that vaults were in common use the milk was
strained above ground and then carried in pans to the cave and
placed in rows on the flagstone floor. The milk was skimmed
there, and the cream, if not cool enough, was sometimes let
down the well by a rope. The churning was done above ground,
but the butter-making and moulding it into shape were done in
the vaults. The butter, usually in pound moulds, was wrapped
in cotton cloths and placed in rows on the flagstones or on the
stone shelves. I learned of one cave where the milk was let down
into the vault by a rope through one of the ventilators.
It is quite difliicult to learn the age of well-caves. They are
found at farm houses, the oldest part of which dates back to
1765, and the newer parts between 1800 and 1850, but I have
not been able to determine the dates when the vaults were built.
Where the old doors are intact I have found hand wrought
hinges and nails, also that lime and sand mortar was used in
their construction. ■ Cave-wells are much more numerous in the
lower part of our county than in the middle and northern parts.
However they must have been used by the Germans for in the
records of their early settlements, they are referred to as "ground
cellars".
Substantially built stone houses, the bakeovens, the smoke-
houses, and the well-caves are the common inheritance of the
Bucks county farmer. The bakeoven and the smokehouse have
long since survived their usefulness, and in almost no instance
is the well-cave serving its original purpose, and happy indeed,
must have been the farmer's wife when she carried her last pan
of milk or kettle of cream up and down that long flight of
stone steps.
Notes of Forgotten Trades,
BY DR. HENRY C. MERCER, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Doylestown Meeting, May 31, 1919.)
POTTERS Quern for Grinding Glaze. (Information of Red-
ding Francis Rapp, to Dr. Mercer, February 1916). Seen
by Mr. Rapp in Northampton County, Pa., another on the
Pennsylvania side of the Delaware river half way between the
Milford and Frenchtown river bridges, another one at Herstine's
pottery in Nockamixon township. One of these querns resembled
the paint quern in the museum of the Bucks County Historical
Society, but another one ground the paint under a revolving
wheel set upon an axle vertically on a saucer stone, and pulled
around the circumference of the saucer upon a vertical pivot in
the center.
Pie Dishes. (Information of Mr. Rapp to Dr. Mercer, Feb-
ruary 1916.) Mr. Rapp saw decorated pie dishes in the posses-
sion of Sarah Riegel, between upper Tinicum Church and Revere,
about two miles from Revere. Still living there. Another in
possession of Sarah Krause living near Cornelius Herstine's pot-
tery on Peter Mills farm. Also in possession of Emeline Rapp at
Erwinna.
Dog Churn. (Information of Mr. Rapp to Dr. Mercer, Feb-
ruary 1916.) Mr. Rapp saw churns worked by dogs, goats and
sheep. The dog would frequently refuse to work and lie down.
He saw this between Freemansburg and Durham Furnace in
Northampton township in 1855.
Cider Press. (Information of Mr. Rapp to Dr. Mercer, Feb-
ruary 1916.) Mr. Rapp, now of Doylestown. Pa., built in his
boatyard at Erwinna, a cider press in 1862 for Tobias Fishier
and Titus Tettemer. The wood was secured at Stover's mill and
in the woods. It was dressed with common broad axes (not of
the goose wing type), and wood axes. White oak was always
used. The wood was sawed at Fishler's mill. The wooden
screws were bought second hand, and the iron work was made by
208 RANDOM NOTES ON FORGOTTEN TRADES
Gus Siegler at Erwinna. The latter bought the press. The
style of the press was with a double screw like the one with a
roof upon it at the Bucks County Historical Society. The
apples were ground in a mill in the open air with no roof, which
was turned by two horses. A great deal of cider was made dur-
ing the time that soldiers were drafted for the war, and the
cider was made by the owners and Mr. Rapp. The farmers
brought the apples by the wagon load. Then Mr. Rapp distilled
the cider, then worth eighteen cents a gallon. He ran it forty
degrees above proof and gave 140 gallons for every 100 gallons
sold. It was then put in wooden containers and placed in the
cellar, where it would rectify to proof. Fishier was drafted into
the army for nine months, and after he came home, he sold apple
jack for $2.50 a gallon after paying the war tax, which was about
80 cents or $1.00 a gallon, for which the Government sent a
ganger, and the tax was not paid until the liquor was sold. This
cidermill was the first Mr. Rapp ever made, and he was then
about twenty-four years old. About 1864 he built another one
for John Frantz who lived about one mile above Erwinna, Tini-
cum township. This was the single screw style like the others in
the Bucks County Historical Society, and it may be still upon the
premises. At that time he made no whiskey. Samuel Hillpot
had a cidermill one mile south of Erwinna called a burr mill
where apple whiskey was distilled. His mill had a grinder like
ours. Abraham Schick in Nockamixon township had another
and he also made whiskey. Copper stills were used. Schick had
the circular grinding trough with wooden wheels. Mr. Rapp
has seen a great many cidermills about Bucks county. He worked
five years for Fishier and colled money for him.
Querns in Greene County^ Pennsylvania. (Information
of E. F. Bowlby to Dr. Mercer, January 29, 1916.) Querns for
grinding meal r^n by horse power on a treadmille made in
Greene county were seen by Mr. Bowlby about forty-five years
ago or about 1865. The stones were about eighteen inches in
diameter.
NiGGERiNG Logs. (Information of Mr. Bowlby to Dr. Mercer,
Greene county were seen by Mr. Bowlby about forty-five years
Mercer, January 29, 1916.) In Monongahela county, West Vir-
RANDOM NOTES ON FORGOTTEN TRADES 209
ginia. about 1840 to 1880, A. L. Wade, as a boy, about 1840 cut
up long logs, several of which were hauled into his house for him
by his neighbors. The process of "niggering", or cutting the logs
by fire, was done by building small fires of small sticks across the
logs which fires were continually renewed until the logs were cut
through in hollows about ten to twelve inches wide. New fires
were built by laying a shovelful of live coals on a fresh log from
an old fire. Mr. Wade then lived at a place called Bowlby, in
Monongahela county and Robert Bowlby (brother of E. F.),
in making clearings for new houses also thvis cut fresh logs at the
same place between 1875 and 1880. A great number of log-
fires could be kept going at the same time.
Milestones. (Information of Wilson Woodman, Wycombe,
to Dr. Mercer, April 1916.) An old milestone stands on the
Newtown pike just below \A^rightstown. Another at the Anchor
Hotel opposite the latter, marked 26^ to Philadelphia. Another
on the New Hope road marked 26 miles to Philadelphia. The
latter is lying down now, May 1916.
Log Barns. (Information of Stacy L. Weaver, Doylestown,
to Dr. Mercer, February 3, 1916.) About 1856 when I was
twelve years old I worked for my uncles. Samuel, Frank and
Weaver Laubenstein, on a farm on the left bank of Tinicum
creek about one mile southeast of Sundale. At that time I
helped to cover the roof of the barn with thatch of rye straw tied
down with twists of straw. No strings were used, nor were
stones laid upon it. The thatch was four inches thick and it
sometimes had to be repaired. It was built of logs with
the threshing floor on the ground. The barn was very long,
about sixty feet. Mr. Fox lived on this farm within the last
twenty years, but the old log barn has long since been replaced
by a frame barn. The house was considered very old in 1856,
and had double doors like those found in stables.
Log Barn One Mile East of Doylestown. (Information
of Stacy L. Weaver to Dr. Mercer, February 3, 1918.) A log
barn stood near the present old stone house now belonging to Dr.
Henry C. Mercer, was lived in about 1875 by Mr. Harding.
This barn had the threshing floor on the ground, and part of the
210 RANDOM NOTES ON FORGOTTEN TRADES
roof was thatched. The rest of it was roofed with boards.
Owing to the rotting away of the lower structure of logs the
whole building had settled, so that a cow scarcely got in the door.
Mr. Harding lived in the stone house at that time. I never re-
member seeing a bake oven there. (A walled-up hole in the
east wall against the back of the fireplace proves that a bake
oven had existed, H. C. M.)^
Fiddlers. (Information of Stacy L. Weaver to Dr. Mercer,
December 15, 1917.) Bryce Weaver, father of Stacy L. Weaver,
did not play, but his uncles Samuel and William Weaver, were
fiddlers. Samuel went to Cincinnati fifty-five years ago. His
family lived on the edge of Nockamixon swamp. They both
played by note and played for square dances, cotillions and
waltzes, later for the polka, quadrille and lancers. A favorite
tune often played was, "Turkeys in the Straw". Stacy often
called the figures for this at dances. Bill Smith was an old
fiddler living in the glen on the Erwinna road just northeast of
Headquarters, now Sundale, when Stacy was a boy. His favor-
ite tunes were, "The Fishers Hornpipe", "Devils Dream", and
"Arkansas Traveller". Hen Allen, a blacksmith at Pipersville,
was a good fiddler about forty years ago. He played by note.
He played at dances held at Bedminster Center. Erwinna and
Bedminsterville, and for parties at Headquarters. He played
alone as did most fiddlers. Bill Purcell and his brother at Er-
winna along the canal were good fiddlers. John Ernst, near
Dublin, was a mighty good fiddler. He borrowed Stacy's violin,
a very good instrument, to play at a party at Point Pleasant, and
that was the last Stacy ever saw of it or of the borrower. He
played by note and played left handed. Fiddlers never took note
books to parties or dances, being perfectly familiar with their
tunes. Ten cents a corner or forty cents a set, was the usual
charge of a fiddler at a dance. Sometimes they would pass the
hat around and collect five, or six dollars. Fights at Red Hill
Tavern parties were frequent, where two rival "gangs", were at
feud. One of these was called the Strause Gang.
1 A small log cabin on the Stony Garden Road about one mile east of
Singer's Pottery at Danielstown, observed by Dr. Henry C. Mercer and Frank
K. Swain, summer of 1917, had so sunk into the ground, probably in the same
manner owing to the absence of foundation, that I, Henry C. Mercer, could
not stand erect in the single room on the ground floor, the ceiling of which
formed the floor of the garret. I also had to stoop to enter the door.
random notes on forgotten trades 211
Survival of the Most Primitive Method of Threshing
Grain in Bucks County About 1850. (Information to Dr.
Mercer, December 15, 1917.) As a boy living in Tinicum town-
shop, Bucks county, Stacy L. Weaver on several occasions led
horses or mules on the threshing floor of the barn, to thresh
grain by stamping with their feet.
The Ringing Rocks of Bridgeton Township.
BY B. F. FACKENTHAL, JR., SC. D., RIEGELSVILLE, PA.
(Ringing Rocks Meeting, October 4, 1919.)
'N 1909, ten years ago, there was included in the
pubHcations of the Bucks County Historical So-
ciety, a short description of the Ringing Rocks of
Bridgeton Township, in Bucks County, Pa.^ That
paper, however, was not read before the society,
and in view of the further fact that since then,
viz : on August 22, 1918, the land which contains these interesting
rocks was presented to our society by Mr. Abel B. Haring, of
Frenchtown, N. J., I have thought that it might be of special
interest to read a revised paper at this meeting, after our return
from visiting the rocks, and while resting in this shady nook
under the hemlocks at High Falls.
The land conveyed by Mr. Haring has an area of 7 acres 8.08
perches- and in addition thereto, Mr. John O. McEntee has
kindly consented to present to our society, a right-of-way into the
property from the public road.
The property is situate in Bridgeton Township, (erected in 1880
out of part of Nockamixon Township) about three-quarters of a
mile back from the Delaware River, on a plateau having an ele-
vation of about 500 feet above tide. Immediately to the west
is Coffman's Hill with an elevation of about 750 feet. The
ringing rocks are about six miles from Riegelsville by the river
road via Narrowsville, about four miles from Ferndale and about
two and one-quarter miles from Milford, N. J. They can also be
reached from Kintnersville by the public road leading past Kint-
nersville schoolhouse, which connects at the top of the hill with
the Ferndale road. It is also feasible to open a road leading into
the rocks from the Delaware River road, now a state highway, and
I trust that this society will at an early day take the initiative in
securing a right-of-way and building such a road, which would
make this interesting place more accessible and inviting to the
traveling public.
1 Bucks County Historical Society papers. Vol. Ill, p. 590 et seq.
2 Recorded at Doylestown, Deed Book No. 413, p. 318.
PALISADES OR NARROWS OF NOCKAMIXOK.
Bluffs of New Red Sandstone rising about 400 feet above the Delawai
River. Taken from Narrowsville Locks, with view of
Delaware Division Canal.
RIXGIXG ROCKS OF BRIDGETON TOWNSHIP, BUCKS COUXTl', I'A.
View looking toward the south.
The largest part of this field, shown in the background of this etching, covers
an area of five acres. Photographed May 3, 1909.
MONROE, Dl'llHAM TOWNSHIP, BUCKS COUNTY, PA.
To show cavities in the conglomerri te, lying at the northern edge of the
triassic, after the softer magnesian limestone (dolomite) had leached out.
THE RINGING ROCKS OF RRIDGETON TOWNSHIP 213
These rocks present an interesting geological study. They be-
long to the triassic period, and consist of igneous trap rocks,
called igneous because of the intensely heated liquid condition
(suggesting fire to the ancients) in which they were forced up
into their place as intrusive masses or through the rocks to the
surface as in the cases of lava flows. This triassic belt, known
also as New Red Sandstone, and classified by the United States
and New Jersey Geological surveys, as the Newark System, can
be traced from the Hudson River across the states of New Jersey
and Pennsylvania into Maryland, following the general trend of
the mountain ranges running northeast and southwest. The
palisades of the Hudson belong to this series, as do also our own
beautiful palisades at the Narrows in Nockamixon Township,
Bucks County. At the Hudson River the formation is about fif-
teen miles wide. At the Delaware River it has a width of about
thirty-two miles, extending from Trenton on the south, to its
northern boundary just south of Holland Church in Hunterdon
County, New Jersey. This northern boundary can be traced by
conglomerates, which outcrop at many places across the states of
New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The lines of demarcation and con-
tact are well defined on the Pennsylvania side of the river, op-
posite Holland church, at Monroe (Lehnenburg), in Durham
Township, Bucks County, where the red shale is separated from
the dolomite'^ (which forms its northern boundary) by splendid
examples of conglomerate. Along the river road leading from
Holland Church to Milford, N. J., near Holland railroad station,
there are bold bluffs of conglomerate which rise, almost perpen-
dicularly, two hundred and fifty feet above the river. Where
these bluffs have been cut through to make room for the public
road and for the Belviedere Delaware railroad they can be seen
to splendid advantage. An etching from a photograph of one of
them is shown herewith. At that place the conglomerates
can also be seen in the bed of the river. When the water is low
some .parts are exposed above its surface. Between Holland
3 The dolomite at Monroe, lying north of the conglomerate, contains but
one per cent of silica, whereas that in New Jersey, just north of Holland
church, almost immediately across the river from Monroe, contains twenty
per cent.
Splendid examples of this same dolomitic formation, with pebbles, can be
seen to advantage along the northern edge of the triassic, in the outcroppings
on the farm now (1919) belonging to Miss Ida Weaver on a branch of
Cook's or Durham Creek, near West Springfield schoolhouse, on the road
leading to Leithsville and Hellertown, in Northampton County.
214 THE RINGING ROCKS OF BRIDGETON TOWNSHIP
Church and Milford, N. J., the river flows almost due east, and
the boundary of the conglomerate apparently follows the bed of
the river westwardly, passing at Monroe into Pennsylvania, where
loose pebbles of flint can be traced over the hills through Durham
and Springfield Townships. Buckwampun Hill, eight hundred
feet above tide, is covered with silicious pebbles. Back from the
river on the New Jersey side these conglomerate bluffs form
Gravel Hill, with an elevation of eight hundred and sixty-five feet
above tide. The pebbles in the conglomerate at Holland are
mostly silicious, they vary in size and shape and are of many
colors. At Monroe the composition is somewhat different, the
pebbles in that part lying next to the dolomite are dolomitic. In
some places the dolomite, being softer, has dissolved or eroded
leaving the matrix full of irregular-shaped cavities, as shown by
the etching accompanying this paper, which will give some idea
of the honeycombed condition of this limestone-dolomite breccia.'^
This condition changes gradually as it nears the new red sand-
stone, where the pebbles are mixed and become mostly silicious.
The average width of the triassic across Pennsylvania (the
southeastern corner) is about twenty miles. It is, however, much
wider across Bucks and Montgomery Counties which are made
up largely of this formation.
The triassic occurs also in Connecticut from New Haven
northward into Massachusetts, but there it is bounded on the
west by a broad area of crystalline rocks, granite and gneiss. It
does not cross the Hudson River, and apparently has no connec-
tion with the New Jersey-Pennsylvania area, if it ever was a part
the connection has long since been removed by erosion. So too
the New Jersey-Pennsylvania area is not connected with the
North Carolina and Virginia areas.
There is. however, no intention of making this a technical
paper, as the geology has been carefully studied and fully de-
scribed by the geological surveys of both Pennsylvania and New
Jersey to which reference can be had. Neither of these surveys,
however, refers to the ringing rocks. But I desire especially to
invite your attention to the admirable reports in the New Jersey
4 Dr. Edgar T. VTherry, formerly of Lehigh University, but now of the
United States National Museum, reports having found glauberite crystal-
cavities in the triassic in the vicinity of Steinsburg in Bucks County. (See
American Mineralogist, Vol. I, No. 3, for September, 1916, pp. 37 to 43.
ELUFF OF CONGLOMERATE IN NORTHERN EDGE OF THE TRIASSIC.
Along Delaware River, near Holland, N. J. Railroad Station.
(Photograph by B. F. Fackenthal, Jr., January 17. 1919.)
THE RINGING ROCKS OF BRIDGETON TOWNSHIP 215
Geological Survey, particularly those of Dr. Henry B. Kiimmel in
the annual reports for 1896 and 1897, and of Dr. J. Volney
Lewis in the annual reports for 1906 and 1907.
Throughout this belt of triassic or new red sandstone, there are
numerous dykes of igenous trap rocks. Much of this trap rock is
being quarried and crushed for road making material, but the
ringing rocks, although of the same diabase, present a unique and
entirely different appearance from the ordinary outcroppings.
Within the area of this formation there are many places where
rocks are broken and piled loosely or scattered, but so far as I
know there are but seven fields in Pennsylvania where they have
ringing properties. "•
The seven places are as follows. The first three are in Bucks
County :*^
1. Ringing Rocks of Bridgeton Township, of which special
mention is made in this paper.
2. Stony Garden in Haycock Township, on the northern
slope of Haycock Mountain.
3. Springfield Township, about two and one-quarter miles
east of Coopersburg station on the North Pennsyl-
vania branch of the Reading Railroad, known locally
as "Rocky Valley," but is on the side of a mountain
and has an elevation of about seven hundred feet.
4. Spring Mountain, Montgomery County, east of Per-
kiomen Creek, three miles above Schwenksville, Pa.
5. Ridge Valley, near Sumneytown, Montgomery County,
known locally as the "Devil's Potato Patch."
6. Ringing Hill, Ringing Rocks Park, Montgomery County,
about two miles northeast of Pottstown, Pa.
7. Blue Rocks in Chester County, one mile east of Elver-
son station, on the Wilmington branch of the Read-
ing Railroad.
3 Prof. J. Volney Lewis advises me that there is a field of ringing rocks on
the east face of Sourland mountain, two and one-half miles northeast of
Belle Meade in Somerset County, N. J., locally known as "Devil's Half Acre,"
although, he says, the area is considerable in excess of half-an-acre.
6 Suggestions have been made that the so-called "Blue Rocks,' near Len-
hartsville, in Berks County, may belong to the same series, but that is quite
wrong, as they are of an entirely different geological formation. They are
conglomerate boulders from the medina at the base of the Silurian The blue
rocks cover an area of probably as much as ten acres, and are such con-
glomerates as are found near the anthracite coal measures. Although called
blue rocks, the white quartz of the conglomerates gives them a whitish color.
Nearly all of the exposed rocks have lichens growing upon them, and they
present a most beautiful appearance, but, of course, have no ringing
properties.
216 THE RINGING ROCKS OF BRIDGETON TOWNSHIP
The etchings of ringing rocks, shown herewith, are from
photographs of the main part of the Bridgeton Township field,
which is larger than any other field herein referred to. This
part has an area of about five acres, and in it the musical rocks
are found. The rocks are of irregular shapes, and vary in size
from fifty pounds to several tons in weight. They are piled on
top of each other to a great depth, but their surface, which is
comparatively level, is not elevated above the immediately sur-
rounding land. It is, however, a noticeable fact that all of these
beds of ringing rocks are found at the bases of higher mountains,
which are also composed of trap rock. They are all found at
the north edge of the igneous eruption. All of the beds of ring-
ing rocks, like those shown in the etching, are entirely denuded
by erosion. They do not contain a particle of soil or vegetation
other than some lichens. There are also several small beds on
the Bridgeton property, adjoining the large field, but the rocks
are not so well defined, in fact the entire neighborhood is covered
with boulders of this same formation. The region is rough and
rocky, and the surrounding land not suitable for cultivation.
When the ringing rocks are struck with a hammer or other
metallic object, they give out a bell-like sound, the tones varying
according to their size and qualities. Some are decidedly more
musical than others, some have tones like those of a blacksmith's
anvil, some do not ring at all. The musical properties are not
destroyed by removing them from their beds. I have myself sent
specimens to several of our near-by colleges for their museums.
In order to further demonstrate this feature I brought this stone
from the Bridgeton field last week for illustration (exhibiting a
flat stone fifteen inches in diameter and four inches thick, and
striking it with a hammer). But it remained for the late Dr. J. J.
Ott, of Pleasant Valley, Bucks County, to more fully demonstrate
the musical character of these rocks after removing them from
their beds. In June, 1890, at a meeting of the Buckwampun His-
torical Society, he made a careful selection of stones, to form a
musical octave, on which he played several selections accompanied
by a brass band. The clear, bell-like tones of the rocks could be
heard above the notes of the horns.
The ringing properties are doubtless due to the texture of the
diabase of which they are composed, but why some should re-
f.^~ ^""kS
^^
WKATHKRED TRAP ROCK BOULDER.
This rock is 42 feet in circumference by 8 feet liigh. Estimated weight 75 tot
msMAmp.
9,"
' ^^vA: 4
;W'^^«jf .f*-
'.
Ri-
Ik
^v
Biv"
^-
ii:t
TRAP ROCK BOULDERS NEAR RINOING ROCKS, BRIDGETON
TOWNSHIP.
To show exfoliation shrinkage cracks.
(Photographs by B. F. Fackenthal, Jr., November 28, 1912.)
THE RINGING ROCKS OF BRIDGETON TOWNSHIP 217
spend with a ring and others lying alongside are non-resonant,
does not to my mind fully appear. They were doubtless cooled
or annealed differently and therefore the crystalization may have
been different.'^ Geologists tell us that the fields doubtless for-
merly presented solid surfaces, which were broken apart by
erosion and that water percolating downward along the seams
gradually decomposed the rock constituents, which were carried
away by underground currents of water. There are some large
specimens lying near the Bridgeton ringing rocks which are split
apart into four pieces, with cleavages which appear to have been
of recent origin, and though they are lying several feet from
each other, it is quite apparent that they could be fitted together
as a whole, with very close seams between them. An idea of
rocks split apart, apparently in more recent years, can be had by
the etching shown herewith of such rocks at the Stony Point field.
ROCKS WITH SHRINKAGE CRACKS.
The belt of trap rock, which contains the ringing rocks, in
eastern Pennsylvania, can readily be traced by surface indica-
tions, i. c, by the character of the soil and by the trapean boulders
distributed along its course. Some of the boulders are of huge
proportions. Interesting features of many are the exfoliated
shrinkage cracks on their surfaces. The etchings shown here-
with are from photographs of two large rocks lying alongside of
the public road about half-a-mile from the Bridgeton field.
Rocks with shrinkage cracks are quite common along the course
of the traps, the greater part are checkered like the etching, some
have cracks in concentric rings. It is also noticeable that the
course of these trap rocks can be traced by a copious growth of
cedar trees. The flora of this territory has proved of special
interest to botanists.
r In 1909, Dr. Henry B. Kiimmel, State Geologist for New Jersey, accom-
panied me to the Bridgeton ringing rocks. He selected specimens that had
ringing properties and those that were nonresonant. He submitted these
samples to Dr. J. Volney Lewis, professor of geology at Rutgers College, New
Brunswick, N. J., who made a microscopical examination of them by means
of thin rock sections and a petrographical microscope. Dr. Lewis reported
that the specimens were typical olivene-diabase, similar in all essential re-
spects to the Hudson Palisade types described by him in Dr. Kiimmel' s an-
nual report for 1907, q. v. The only difference noticed by him, was that the
nonresonant sample was distinctly altered in the case of mineral pyroxene,
while all the minerals of the resonant sample were remarkably sound and
fresh Dr Lewis says that it would perhaps be unsafe to generalize too
broadly, but it would appear that the resonance may depend upon the fresh-
ness of the sample.
218 THE RIIsGING ROCKS OF BRIDGETON TOWNSHIP
The argillite at Point Pleasant, on both sides of the Delaware
River, is of the same trap rock formation, although at that point
it is much closer grained, and has no shrinkage cracks. On the
Pennsylvania side, along Gddes Run, there are ancient quarries
with turtle backs, chips, and other refuse left by the Indians,
who used this fine grained argillite for spear and arrow heads. ^
STONY GARDEN, HAYCOCK TOWNSHIP, BUCKS COUNTY.
Stony Garden field has an elevation of six hundred and twenty
feet. It lies on the northern slope of Haycock Mountain, which
contains the largest deposit of trap rock in Pennsylvania.^ The
apex of the mountain is nine hundred and sixty feet high. This
field is divided into several parts, but the main part is much the
largest and has an area of about three acres. It was from this
field that Dr. Ott selected the stones for his orchestra. Its situa-
tion is a wild and lonely one in the mountain, about two miles
south of the Durham Road at Stony Point (Gallows Hill), and
on the east side of the public road leading from there to Apple-
bachville. The surrounding land is even more barren than the
Bridgeton field. It is reported that the state of Pennsylvania is
considering the advisabiility of making a game-preserve of Hay-
cock Mountain. If this is accomplished the Stony Garden field
would be included within its boundaries.
The tunnel of the North Pennsylvania Railroad, near Perkasie,
passes through the western spur of Haycock Mountain, and there-
fore through the same character of trap rock to which reference
is being made. The Ridge Road running from the Harrow tavern
to Sumneytown is laid out on a ridge of trap rock.
RINGING HILL, POTTSTOWN.
The ringing rocks near Pottstown cover an area of about four
acres, and were formerly known as "Ringing Hill." By reason
of their nearness to a city, they are better known than the other
fields. Moreover, the Pottstown Ringing Rocks Electric Rail-
9 See "The Redman's Bucks County," with illustrations, Vol. II, page 278.
8 Edward Marshall and his associates passed along the northern base of
this mountain, while making the historic "Indian Walk,' Sept. 19 and 20,
1737. They left the Durham road at Stony Point (Gallows Hill), and then
followed an Indian path to "Wilson's Settlement, ' on a branch of Cook s (now
Durham) creek near the West Springfield schoolhouse in Springfield town-
ship, where they rested and ate their noonday meal Sept. 19, 1737.
SWAMP CREEK, SUMNEYTOWX, MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PA.
To show trap rock boulders with shrinkage cracks. Rocks with similar cr
can be traced for many miles along the course of
the trap rock formation.
STONY GARDEN, HAYCOCK MOUNTAIN, BUCKS COUNTY, PA.
To show trap rock split apart, apparently in more recent years which could
fitted closely together again. This is an example of many rocks
that can be seen on the adjacent hills along the
course of the trap rock formation.
THE RINGING ROCKS OF BRIDGETON TOWNSHIP 219
way, which opened July 21, 1894, has estabHshed a pleasure park
at that place, which has made it well known throughout eastern
Pennsylvania. During my visit to that field the guide (employed
by the trolley company) showed me over the rocks, and pointed
out many fantastic shapes formed on the rocks, some of which,
as I recollect, included the seat of an Indian Chief, with indenta-
tions on rocks lower down where prints of his feet were shown ;
In fact almost every depression and pothole was given a name
for the benefit of tourists. He did not believe that the shapes
were due to erosion, but assured me that they were really as he
represented them.
Several papers were read before the Buckwampun Historical
Society on the Ringing Rocks of Bridgeton and Stony Garden,
in fact that society held two of its annual meetings at the former
and one at the latter place. Many articles have also been contrib-
uted through the newspapers describing these rocks. A number
of papers have also been piesented on the field at Schwenksville,
these generally call attention to special rocks such as "Catch-me-
not" rock; "Saul's Rest" and "Indian Kettle." The latter hav-
ing a kettle-shaped opening of eight or nine gallons capacity.
devil's den at GETTYSBURG.
The "Devil's Den" at Gettysburg, made memorable and historic
by the Battle of Gettysburg, in 1863, is of trap rock, which be-
longs to the same series as that in Bucks County. In 1909 I
sampled the rocks at that place for chemical analyses, the results
of which are appended hereto.
giant's causeway, county ANTRIM, IRELAND.
The northern coast of Ireland, for many miles, is composed of
trap rock, geologically like that of Bucks County. At places the
clififs rise at a height of over four hundred feet. Underneath the
cliflfs, along the water's edge, there are a number of caves. On
shore the rocks show many interesting freaks of nature which
have been given special and suggestive names. Isolated pillars
about forty-five feet high, are called "Giant's Chimney Tops." A
colonnade of pillars is called the "Giant's Organ." But the most
interesting, and in fact puzzling feature is the "Giant's' Cause-
way," where the basaltic rocks are not deposited in layers, nor in
220 THE RINGING ROCKS OF BRIDGETON TOWNSHIP
boulders, as they are in Bucks County, but in vertical columns
which range from fifteen to twenty-four inches in diameter, and
have sides with many angles. Some of these columns have five,
some six, some seven, some eight and a few with nine sides ; there
is at least one with three sides. There is no system or regularity
about their placement, the prisms with different angles stand side
by side, and yet the sides are of such uniformity that they are
fitted together with precision, and the joints are impervious to
water. It would, of course, be impossible to enter a sheet of
paper between them. Vertically they are all jointed together
into short, irregular lengths, not more than a few feet long that
articulate by means of perfectly fitted convex and concave joints
and form true columns. These convex and concave joints are
not always at the same end of the sections, but are reversed with-
out any system or regularity.
Etchings from photographs of the Giant's Causeway, taken
in 1906 at the time of our visit, are shown herewith.
FINGAL's cave, ISLAND OF STAFFA, SCOTLAND.
Fingal's Cave on the southwestern coast of the Islet of Staft'a.
Argyleshire, Scotland, seven miles off the west coast of Mull, and
other caves in that isle, contain basaltic rocks of similar trap rock
formation.
specific GRAVITIES AND CHEMICAL ANALYSES.
The specific gravities of the trap rocks from the four Penn-
sylvania fields which I sampled are as follows: Bridgeton, 3.15;
Stony Point, 3.05 ; Pottstown, 3.23 ; Devil's Den, 3.06.
The sampling from the Bridgeton field for chemical analysis,
reported below, was made up of many small pieces chipped from
only rocks which had the best ringing properties. All my samples
were analyzed in the laboratory of the Thomas Iron Company,
by Mr. Walter Wyckoff, chief chemist.
Some of the specific gravities and analyses of trap rocks re-
ported in the New Jersey Geological Survey, particularly for the
year 1907, are somewhat similar to those of my samples, but as
a rule the specific gravities are less in the New Jersey reports.
No test has come to my notice of trap rock as heavy as the Potts-
town samples, which (by calculation) weigh 202 pounds to the
GIANTS CAUSEWAY, COUNTY ANTRIM, NORTH COAST OF IRELAND.
(Photographs by B. F. Fackenthal, Jr., .July, 1906.)
THE RINGING ROCKS OF BRIDGETON TOWNSHIP 221
cubic foot. For comparison I will state that Quincy granite
weighs 166 pounds to the cubic foot.
Bridgeton Devil's Den
Ringing Rocks Gettysburg, Pa.
Silica 52.68 53.09
Alumina 11.86 15.67
Lime 9.87 10.75
Magnesia 8.99 6.50
Oxide of Iron (FCgOp.. 12.73 11.00'
Oxide of Manganese 0.20 0.20
Phosphoric Acid 0-1 1 0.14
Sulphuric Acid 0.07 0.07
Titanic Acid 0.63 Not deter.
Copper Nil Nil
Potash 0.49 0.52
Soda 1.23 1.38
Loss on Ignition 0.45 0.53
Loss on Analyses 0.69 0.15
100.00 100.00
Metallic Iron 9.22 7.97
Specific Gravity 3.15 3.06
Our Local Flora.
BY JOHN A. RUTH, DURHAM, PA.
READ BY DR. B. F. FACKENTHAL, JR.
(Ringing Rocks Meeting, October 4, 1919.)
THIS consists of two papers read before the Buckwampun His-
torical Society; one on June 14, 1888, and the other on June 8,
1889. They were therefore not prepared specially for our society,
but in view of the fact that the Ringing Rocks meeting was held
in the neighborhood where many of Mr. Ruth's specimens were gath-
ered, the papers were read at our meeting as a matter of local interest
and are now printed in order that they may be made part of our pro-
ceedings and not become lost to the history of our county.
The Ringing Rocks are located in Bridgeton township, which in
1880 was erected out of part of Nockamixon township, and is therefore
included in the territory described by Mr. Ruth. Buckwampun is in
Springfield township, which adjoins both Nockamixon and Durham
townships.
To the botanist as well as to the historian, Buckwampun is a
place of more than passing interest. Rich as it is in the legends
and historical events of the past, it is not less so in the abundance
and variety of its natural productions, its deep shady ravines, its
fine, open woods, and its mossy bogs yield floral treasures of great
interest to the student of nature. In their shady retreats
"Many a flower is born to blush unseen"
except by the watchful eye of the botanist. So great is the variety
of its different forms of vegetable life, that it would take years of
patient study and research to become familiar with them all. The
number of species of flowering plants, ferns, and fern allies is
large, but it is fully equaled, if not surpassed by the lower orders
of plant life. Most prominent among these are the mosses, found
in great profusion, and covering the earth with a carpet of rich-
est green. They retain this color throughout the year and invite
the attention of collectors at all seasons. They can be pressed
and laid away for future analysis, as drying does not destroy
their characteristics. However much they may become dried and
shriveled, they will expand again when placed in water, and in a
short time are as good for study as fresh specimens. Their
OUR LOCAL FLORA 223
analysis requires a good microscope, and skill in handling it, but
under its magnifying powers they become objects of surprising
beauty. About nine hundred species and varieties of these plants
have been found in this country, north of the Mexican boundary,
and are described by Lesquereux and James in their manual.
Three hundred and twenty-five species were collected in our
neighboring state. New Jersey, by the late C. F. Austin, an emi-
nent student of mosses. To a persevering collector, Buckwampun
would yield a large number of species. The bogs on the eastern
slope are especially rich. Their collection and study would be an
excellent training for any one desiring to engage in scientific re-
search. Descending in the scale of vegetable life we next come
to the Fungi, or mushrooms and toadstools, as they are more
commonly called. The number of species of these is large. They
seem to thrive under the most unfavorable conditions. Many
kinds prefer to grow on decayed vegetable matter. In open
woods they spring up from the rich mould formed by decaying
leaves. Stumps, and trunks of dead trees are often covered by
them. Amid death and decay they find the nourishment necessary
to their ephemeral growth. Many species of fungi are poisonous,
while some are edible and nutritious. Certain species of them
find ready sale in our city markets. Squirrels and other animals
have a knowledge of their nutritious properties. How these ani-
mals distinguish between poisonous and edible fungi is a question
for scientists to decide. As in human families a few vicious
members can bring those related to them under suspicion, so
among the fungi the poisonous species have brought the entire
order into bad repute. Many species which are now regarded as
deleterious, are no doubt harmless. The study of these plants is
called Mycology. During my botanical trips to Buckwampun
my attention has often been attracted by the number and variety
of these plants. Many of them are delicately colored, and to
some nature has given forms that are curious and often beauti-
ful. During the months of August and September they are es-
pecially abundant. Still lower than the fungi in the scale of vege-
table life are the lichens. Buckwampun has many representatives
of this family. The trunks of trees, rocks, and even the earth
itself is in many places covered by a coat of lichen gray which
helps not a little to give color to the landscape. One of our most
224 OUR LOCAL FLORA
eminent botanists tells us that in 1883 Dr. Eckfeldt of Phila-
delphia collected sixty-five species of these plants within a few
hours on Haycock mountain. I venture to say that Buckwampun
is equally rich in them. Interesting as are the orders of crypto-
gramic plants that have been mentioned, they receive very little
attention except by the professional botanist. Their study is too
difficult for the ordinary student. Only the specialist becomes
well acquainted with their structure and habits. But, because
this is the case, let us not suppose that these lower orders of
plants are useless. They were created for a purpose and even the
humblest of them has its part to perform in vegetable economy.
Prof. Steel, speaking of these plants says : "They lie at the foun-
dation of all life. Without them vegetable, and consequently, ani-
mal life would be impossible. They are the first to grow on
cinders, sands, and rocks. The last they gradually disintegrate
and by the decay of successive generations form at length a soil
capable of sustaining plants of higher order, — grains, grasses,
trees, on which animals may live. But sooner or later these also
perish, and then the crytogams resume their sway. On fallen
leaves and trunks they multiply, encompassing, penetrating, con-
suming, and in a few years restore to the earth with interest the
materials which they had borrowed." Leaving these difficult or-
ders for the professional botanists let us turn our attention to the
flowering plants, ferns and fern allies of Buckwampun. My in-
terest in the locality began when a boy. In later years, a growing
interest in local botany led me to visit well remembered haunts in
search of specimens for the herbarium, and most gratifying have
been the results. No attempt has been made to get a complete
list of all the plants found in the locality, but from the material
collected I am able to give a general idea of some of its most
prominent botanical characteristics.
For many years Buckwampun has been noted for the abun-
dance and excellent quality of its chestnut timber. It has been
the source that has supplied the farms in its vicinity with chest-
nut rails and posts, for fencing. Its flinty soil is well adapted to
the growth of this valuable tree. The havoc made by the wood-
man's axe is less apparent here than in many other places. Near-
ly every year some parts of the hill are stripped of their trees,
but the soil is so flinty that farming it is almost an impossibility,
OUR LOCAL FLORA 225
and a new growth of timber is usually allowed to spring up. The
probabilities are that the hill will always retain its covering of
forest to the lasting benefit of the surrounding country. Nor
must we forget the fruit of this tree.
The frosty autumn days often find the limbs bending beneath
their load of chestnuts, and the young and old unite in gathering
the crop. This yearly amounts to many bushels, and the money
obtained by their sale is often an important item to those who
gather them. Beside their money value they often bring cheer to
the fireside during the long winter evenings. What boy has not
enjoyed the luxury of sitting by a redhot stove and roasting
chestnuts, while without the storm was roaring, and snow was
drifting over valley and hill.
The huckleberries, of which Buckwampun yields such an
abundance, belong to the botanical order Ericaceae, commonly
known as the Heath family. The earliest to ripen is the low blue-
berry. This is soon followed by the black huckleberry, distin-
guished by its large, black berries, and resinous dotted leaves.
These two species supply all the berries that are picked for sale
or domestic use. Two other species are found. The swamp
blueberry is occasionally found along streams and grows to the
height of six or eight feet, but its berries are not sought for. The
deerberry is very abundant, and yields large quantities of green-
ish berries, as large as cherries, but not edible.
Other members of the Heath family are abundant. In early
spring the woods are a favorite resort for collecting Trailing Ar-
butus, the most lovely of all our spring flowers. Closely related
to it is the spicy Wintergreen, with its shining evergreen leaves,
and aromatic flavored, red berries. Two species of Rhododen-
dron are among the most beautiful of our shrubs, and bear masses
of delicately colored blossoms. Two species of Laural abound
and are botanical named Kalmia, in honor of Kalm, a Swedish
botanist. The larger of these, known as the Mountain Laurel
bears large crymbs of delicately tinted flowers, and is a splendid
shrub, worthy of cultivation. The smaller species is commonly
called Sheep Laurel or Lambkill, and is said to be poisonous to
cattle. The parasitic Heathworts are represented by the Pine-
say and the Corpse Plant. The latter is a curious plant, several
inches in height, and waxy-white in color. On being dried it be-
226 OUR LOCAL FLORA
comes black. Few plants are more showy, and curious in struc-
ture than the Orchid family. Eight species have been collected
on Buckwampun. The earliest and most showy of these is the
Moccason Flower, found in rich, open woods, and producing a
large rose-purple flower. Along the streams rising on the eastern
side of the hill may be found the Purple-fringed Orchis, the
Three-toothed Habenaria and the Ladies Tresses. Along the
dry, flinty hillside near by we meet the Rattlesnake Plantain, and
Slender Ladies Tresses. Two species of Coral-root are found
growing in places where rich leaf mould has accumulated. In
spring and during early summer the different species of violets
are conspicuous. In the bogs on the eastern slope may be found
the common Blue Violet and the Sweet White Violet. In the
open woods the Hand-leaved, and the Yellow Violets make their
appearance. In the clearings on the summit where the soil is
very flinty and sterile we may find large beds of the Bird-foot
Violet. In the fields southwest of the hill we have occasionally
found the Arrow-leaved Violet. All these species produce flow-
ers of great beauty, and are very interesting to the botanist.
Among the rarest plants of Buckwampun is the Round-leaved
Sundew. Is is found at a single station on the eastern side of
the hill, in a large bog. It has not been found elsewhere in our
county, only in the Springfield bogs, where Dr. I. S. Moyer of
Quakertown collected it. Not far from this station we discovered
in 1887 a variety of the Canada Rush which is new to the flora
of Bucks county. This section of Buckwampun is a good local-
ity for those interested in the collection of grasses and sedges.
The sedges are among the most difificult plants which try the skill
and patience of the botanist. They are present everywhere, and
especially so in wet meadows where they crowd out the more
nutritious grasses. About three hundred well defined species are
found in America. Of these Dr. T. C. Porter of Lafayette Col-
lege, Easton, Pa., has enumerated ninety-eight species' and twenty-
four varieties as found in Pennsylvania. Prominent among those
found on Buckwampun are the Hop Sedge, the Swollen-fruited,
and the Rough-fruited sedge. Among the rarer grasses are the
Fowl Meadow-grass, the Obtuse Eatonia, and the Marsh Oat-
Grass. All of these are among the rarer plants of our county.
Of the Lily family we might name the Indian Cucumber Root,
OUR LOCAL FLORA 227
and the American White Hellebore. The latter is a medicinal
plant and in the south, its roots which are poisonous, are gathered
by the natives. While enumerating a few of the most prominent,
as well as some of the rarer plants of Buckwampun, we must
not forget the ferns, and their relations. They belong to that
class of plants which do not produce flowers, but what they lack
in being flowerless, they make up in their exquisite foliage.
Buckwampun is a rich locality for those interested in the collec-
tion of these plants, whether for the herbarium, or for decorative
purposes. Along the streams may be found luxuriant specimens
of Flowering Fern, Claytons Fern, Cinnamon Fern, several fine
species of Shield Ferns and very rarely Clayton's Goldies. The
latter often grows to the height of four feet. It was discovered by
John Goldie, a Scotch botanist, in whose honor it was named.
The Sensitive Fern is abundant along all of the streams. In the
open woods we may find the Grape Fern, the Beech Fern, and
the most graceful of all our ferns, the Maiden-hair Fern.
Of the Fern allies there are found the small and moss-
like seaginella and two species of Club-mosses. The Flat-Club-
moss is an elegant plant for holiday decorations. Such are
some of the botanical features of Buckwampun. Much more
might be said of them but time forbids. Their description is
worthy of the efiforts of a much abler pen than mine. It is to be
hoped that in the future the locality may be more frequently
visited by botanists, and that at a not far distant day we may
have a complete catalogue of its flora.
To the lover of nature, the science of botany presents a most
inviting field for research. Plant life is found everywhere, and
its mysteries are ever involving solution. The study of its prob-
lems brings us in contact with much that is wonderful and beau-
tiful, and increases our reverence for Him who has so mar-
velously wrought in the creation of even the commonest plant.
A large amount of botanical science is so simple that any one
of ordinary ability can acquire it. On the other hand many of
its problems have depths that reach to the furthermost limits of
human thought and research. These questions have puzzled
some of the profoundest scholars of our age.
The study of botany has made rapid progress within the last
228 OUR LOCAL FLORA
ten years ; especially may this be said of the botany of our own
country. We have not only a number of men and women who
are the equals of the best botanists of the old world, but we have,
scattered throughout the land, a large number of amateur botan-
ists. This latter class are men and women who do not study
botany as a means of support, but follow it during their leisure
hours as a means of recreation. It is to this class of students
we owe many of our best local floras, which have been useful to
the professional botanist in classifying and describing the botany
of our country. The collecting grounds of these local botanists
are usually of limited extent but have, in many cases, been ex-
plored with great thoroughness and have yielded some very un-
expected results. Bucks county has been fortunate in having
within her borders a number of enthusiastic workers of this
class, and as a result our county flora is equal to that of any
county in the State.
Some years ago the idea suggested itself to the writer, to cata-
logue the flora of the townships of Durham and Nockamixon. A
herbarium was started in which were preserved specimens of all
plants collected, to be used for study and future reference. It
is my purpose, in this paper, to present some of the results of
this work.^
Durham and Nockamixon townships have an area of about
thirty-six square miles, of which the former covers about one-
fourth, and the latter the remaining three-fourths. The geo-
logical formation of these townships is favorable to a varied
growth of plants. In Durham we have the fertile limestone val-
ley of the Durham creek with its characteristic flora. Bordering
this valley on the north and south are ranges of granite hills
favorable to the growth of some of the species more common to
northern latitudes. In among these hills are several small streams,
having their sources in cold mountain bogs, which are the homes
of some of our most beautiful as well as rarest plants. South of
these hills is the red sandstone, or red shale formation as it is
more commonly called. This formation begins at Monroe on
the Delaware river, and covers the southern part of Durham and
1 Mr. John A. Ruth died at Clifton, N. J., February 26, 1918. His her-
barium, containing about 8,000 specimens, all splendidly mounted and cata-
logued fell into the hands of B. P. Fackenthal, Jr., who has loaned it to the
Academy of Natural Science at Philadelphia.
OUR LOCAL FLORA 229
all of Nockamixon townships. In the latter township it is broken
by a trap dyke of considerable extent, of which ringing rocks
form a part. These widely dilTering formations give important
variations to the soil, w^hich also indicates variations in the plants
found growing therein. Plants, like human beings, do not thrive
amid unfavorable surroundings and generally choose those soils
which are best adapted to their growth.
A comparison of our local fiora with that of other sections of
our country is of some interest. The first attempt to catalogue
the plants of Bucks county was made by Dr. I. S. Moyer of
Ouakertown, Pa. This catalogue was published in 1876, and
enumerates 1,168 species and varieties. Since that date many
new plants have been found, and our flora now (1889) numbers
about 1,300 species.- These have been collected within an area
of about six hundred square miles. The number of plants thus
far collected in Durham and Nockamixon is eight hundred and
forty-seven, showing that about two-thirds of all the plants
known to our county may be found in these two townships. The
Rocky Mountain Flora, published several years ago by Prof.
Coulter, describes 2,167 species, found on an area of 460,000
square miles. From this we see that our small area of thirty-six
square miles has more than one-third as many plants as the en-
tire Rocky Mountain region. Our flora numbers about one four-
teenth (seven per cent) of that of the entire United States.
These facts may be a cause of some local pride. We may well
feel gratified that this locality, so richly blessed in many of the
good things of earth, is also bountilfully favored with plants
and herbs.
The valley of the Delaware will first claim our attention. It
forms the eastern boundary of both townships and has the flora
that is peculiar to our richer valleys. The banks of this beautiful
stream are a rich collecting ground for the botanist ; seeds from
more northern localities are brought here by the annual freshets,
and spring up. Growing in the river or partially covered by its
2 In 1906 Dr. C. D. Fretz of Sellersville, Pa., revised and re-Issued the
catalogue of plants prepared by Dr. Moyer in 1876, to which he added 415
species and varieties, making up to that date (1906) 1,581 species and va-
rieties found witliin the county of Bucks. Three species added, Tulipa syl-
vestris (Wild Tulip), Vicio villosa (Hairy Vetch) and Allium carinatum
(Keeled Garlic) were then new in the United States. Dr. Porter later dis-
covered the Hydrophyllum Candense (Canada W^ater-leaf) growing in the
triassic at the base of the Nockamixon palisades. — B. P. P., Jr.
230 OUR LOCAL FLORA
waters may be found several varieties of Pondweed, Ditch-moss,
Eel-grass, a species of Quillwort, and other aquatic plants. Along
the banks may be found the New England Aster, several mem-
bers of the Sunflower family, an elegant species of Stone-crop
and many of our finest grasses and sedges. Wyker's Island
(formerly called Laughrey's Island), near Kintersville, is a place
of more than common botanical interest. In summer this island
has the appearance of a tropical jungle, so dense is the mass of
vegetation. Two hundred different species have been found there.
Among the rarer plants is the Fresh Water Cord Grass, found
nowhere else in the Delaware valley ; several fine Asters, the
beautiful Lupine, the Ground Cherry, Cardinal Flower and
Spiked Loosestrife have found a home there. Our most famous
botanical locality is the narrows or palisades. Its rare plants
have long attracted the attention of some of our ablest botanists ;
among these may be mentioned Dr. Thomas C. Porter of Lafay-
ette College, Prof. Eugene A. Rau of Bethlehem, Pa., a noted
authority on mosses ; Dr. A. P. Barber, a well-known collector.
Dr. C. D. Fretz of Sellersville, Pa.. Harold W. Pretz of Allen-
town, Pa., and Dr. I. S. Moyer, the author of our county flora.
Here, at an elevation of more than three hundred feet above the
river, in 1867, Dr. Porter discovered Rhodiola rosea L. (Rose-
root). This plant grows in some of the most inaccessable places,
and although abundant here, is found at but two other places in
eastern United States. It is an Alpine plant, more common to
northern regions, and its presence here is regarded as a relic of
the glacial epoch. Here are also found the Mountain Maple,
two fine species of Trillium, Canada Violet, Ginseng, American
Yew, Round-leafed Gooseberry, Rhodiola rosea L., some rare
ferns, and a number of fine grasses and sedges. Mosses and
lichens are unusually abundant, and are worthy of special study.
The larger part of Nockamixon township is situated on an ex-
tensive trap dyke. In many places the surface is covered with
boulders of trap rock, some of them of immense size. This sec-
tions is commonly known as the "swamps". The soil is clay,
and in many places very wet. The township has a large extent
of fine meadow land through which run fine deep, sluggish
streams. In these streams the collector may look for the Yellow
Pond Lily, several specimens of Pondweed, Engleman's Quill-
wort, Water Milfoil and Golden Club. The flora of the meadows
230 OUR LOCAL FLORA
waters may be found several varieties of Pondweed, Ditch-moss,
Eel-grass, a species of Ouillwort, and other aquatic plants. Along
the banks may be found the New England Aster, several mem-
bers of the Sunflower family, an elegant species of Stone-crop
and many of our finest grasses and sedges. Wyker's Island
(formerly called Laughrey's Island), near Kintersville, is a place
of more than common botanical interest. In summer this island
has the appearance of a tropical jungle, so dense is the mass of
vegetation. Two hundred different species have been found there.
Among the rarer plants is the Fresh Water Cord Grass, found
nowhere else in the Delaware valley ; several fine Asters, the
beautiful Lupine, the Ground Cherry, Cardinal Flower and
Spiked Loosestrife have found a home there. Our most famous
botanical locality is the narrows or palisades. Its rare plants
have long attracted the attention of some of our ablest botanists ;
among these may be mentioned Dr. Thomas C. Porter of Lafay-
ette College, Prof. Eugene A. Rau of Bethlehem, Pa., a noted
authority on mosses ; Dr. A. P. Barber, a well-known collector.
Dr. C. D. Fretz of Sellersville, Pa., Harold W. Pretz of Allen-
town, Pa., and Dr. I. S. Moyer, the author of our county flora.
Here, at an elevation of more than three hundred feet above the
river, in 1867, Dr. Porter discovered Rhodiola rosea L. (Rose-
root). This plant grows in some of the most inaccessable places,
and although abundant here, is found at but two other places in
eastern United States. It is an Alpine plant, more common to
northern regions, and its presence here is regarded as a relic of
the glacial epoch. Here are also found the Mountain Maple,
two fine species of Trillium, Canada Violet, Ginseng, American
Yew, Round-leafed Gooseberry, Rhodiola rosea L., some rare
ferns, and a number of fine grasses and sedges. Mosses and
lichens are unusually abundant, and are worthy of special study.
The larger part of Nockamixon township is situated on an ex-
tensive trap dyke. In many places the surface is covered with
boulders of trap rock, some of them of immense size. This sec-
tions is commonly known as the "swamps". The soil is clay,
and in many places very wet. The township has a large extent
of fine meadow land through which run fine deep, sluggish
streams. In these streams the collector may look for the Yellow
Pond Lily, several specimens of Pondweed, Fugleman's Ouill-
wort, Water Milfoil and Golden Club. The flora of the meadows
VIEW OF DELAWARE RIVER, TAKEN FROM TOP OF THE NOCKAMIXON PAI^ISAPES.
Showing Delaware Division Canal ; Narrowsville Locks, Old Colonial Gristmill and Laughrey's or Wyker's Island on which there
was a sawmill erected in 1822, which was washed away by the flood of January 1841. That island is rich in flora and many rare
specimens, particularly of grasses were gathered there by J. H. & H. F. Ruth. The letter "P"^ indicates the location of the Indian
Village Pechotjueolin, on the peninsula north of where Gallows Run empties into the Delaware River, as discovered and descriped
by .lohn A. Ituth. Laughrey's Island was patented to William ICrwin, Jan. 21, 1S12, (Patent book H, Vol. 7, page 26).
OUR LOCAL FLORA 231
is a constant surprise. In the month of June they are covered
with a rich carpet of grass and flowers, and present a most beau-
tiful sight. To the student interested in grasses and sedges
these meadows are of special interest. They produce some of the
finest and rarest of these plant^ Here we find the Canada Lily,
Cardinal Flower, Marsh Marigold, Closed Gentian, Painted Cup,
Fringed Orchid and Cotton Grass. Among the trees we find
splendid specimens of Hickory, Swamp Oak, Pin Oak and Maple
and occasionally the Persimmon. The beauty of these meadows
in summer is difficult to describe, they must be seen in order to
be fully appreciated.
Some of our rarest plants are found in but a single locality.
An example of this kind is the Round-leafed Sundew, which is
found at a single spot on Buckwampun mountain. A rare
plant known as Adder's Tongue has its home in a swamp near
Monroe in Durham township. Along the Delaware canal near
Kintersville grows the Wood Rush, an elegant plant not found
elsewhere in Pennsylvania ; close by is a variety of Cotton Grass
equally rare. The rocky hillside at Monroe is the home of several
rare grasses and sedges. Near Rattle Snake Hill in Durham,
has lately been discovered a single specimen of White Gentian,
a plant not found elsewhere in the state east of the Allegheny
Mountains. Growing with it is a form of Desmodium known
only in Pennsylvania on Montgomery Island in the Susquehannna
river, where it was collected by that celebrated botanist, Dr.
Muhlenberg. Several of our plants, as yet comparatively new to
botanical science, and not described in the works on botany com-
monly used in our schools, are described in the pages of the
Torrcy Botanical Bulletin and Dr. Gray's Flora of North America.
Thirty species have been found that are new to the county flora.
Large as is the number of species collected, and gratifying as
the result, there is yet abundant room for further discoveries.
The valley of the Durham creek has been very little explored,
and will no doubt yield some new plants. The Nockamixon
swamps await some energetic collector who will thoroughly ex-
plore their rugged hills and secluded valleys and make known to
the world their wealth of floral treasures. To all who will en-
gage in this work we can promise an abundance of healthful ex-
ercise and the pleasure of discovering new species, a pleasure
which is known only to the botanist.
Biographical Notice of Clarence Decker Hotchkiss.
BY WARREN S. ELY, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Doylestown Meeting, January 17, 1920.)
CLARENCE D. HOTCHK'LSS, for twenty-four years an
active member of the Bucks County Historical Society,
and for fourteen years its efficient secretary and treasurer,
died suddenly January 14, 1920.
Mr. Hotchkiss was born in Philadelphia, August 4, 1857. He
was a son of George W. and Williamina (Bittenbender) Hotch-
kiss. On the paternal side
he was a lineal descendant
of Samuel and Elizabeth
Hotchkiss who were mar-
ried at what is now New
Haven, Conn., in 1632. The
family were residents of
New York and vicinity for
several generations. Sam-
uel Hotchkiss, the great-
grandfather of Clarence D.
was commissioned Master
in the United States Navy,
July 18, 1788, and served
in that capacity until 1799,
when he resigned and set-
tled in the Wyoming Val-
ley of Pennsylvania. He
married Sarah Decker of
Fort Ticonderoga. His son George was reared in the Wyoming
Valley, and his son George W., the father of Clarence D., the
subject of this notice, married Williamina Bittenbender, daugh-
ter of William Bittenbender, of Easton. He removed first to
Philadelphia, and later to Doylestown. Through his mother, Mr.
Hotchkiss was a descendant of Colonel Peter Keichlein, of
Easton.
Clarence D. Hotchkiss was educated at the public schools of
Philadelphia and the Wyoming Seminary, acquiring practically
a college education, and studied under private tutors. He was
CLARENCE D. HOTCHKISS
1S57-1920
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF CLARENCE DECKER HOTCHKISS 233
engaged in the drug business in Philadelphia for a short time
before the removal of the family to Doylestown, where he at
once entered the office of the Doylcstozvn Democrat, of which
Gen. W. W. H. Davis, our late president, was editor and
proprietor.
From that time until his death Mr. Hotchkiss was engaged in
the newspaper business. After a few years spent in Doylestown,
he served on the staff of newspapers in Philadelphia, Atlantic
City, N. J., and Lansdale, Pa., and subsequently founded the
Apprentice's Journal of Philadelphia, which he conducted until
1885, when, returning to Doylestown, he again took a position
on the stafif of the Doylestozvn Democrat which he held until
General Davis sold out his interest in that paper in 1890, when
he accepted a position on the reportial stafif of the Bucks County
Intelligencer, daily and weekly, with which he was connected
until his death, having served several years as its editor in chief. ^
Mr. Hotchkiss and his family were members of the Doylestown
Presbyterian Church. He was the first president of the Bucks
County Christian Endeavor Union, and was always one of the
most active workers in the organization. He was a stockholder
and director of the Intelligencer Company, secretary of the
Press League of Bucks and Montgomery Counties; trustee of
Doylestown Fire Company No. 1, from its organization until
his death ; secretary of the Doylestown Board of Health from its
organization in 1894. He was a member of Aquetong Lodge,
No. 193, I. O. O. F., and of Doylestown Encampment, No. 35,
L O. O. F., being a past officer and one of the most active mem-
bers of both organizations until his death, filling the office of
trustee in both for many years, as well as that of Assistant De-
gree Master. He was also a member of Doylestown Lodge No.
245 F. and A. M.
Mr. Hotchkiss became a member of the Bucks County His-
torical Society January 21, 1896, and always took an active in-
terest in its affairs. He was elected its secretary and treasurer
June 14, 1896. and a director January 14, 1906.
Possessed to a marked degree of fine social qualities, earnest
and energetic in everything that he undertook, deeply interested
in all that pertained to the best interests of the community in
1 On June 5, 1915, a dinner was given at the Fountain House, Doylestown,
in honor of his association with the Intelligencer for twenty-five years.
234 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF CLARENCE DECKER HOTCHKISS
which he Hved. he was called into service along many lines of
public welfare, and rendered to each the loyal, kindly, and en-
ergetic service that made him a valuable and popular man in his
home community.
The death of Mr. Hotchkiss occurred but three days before
our annual meeting held January 17, 1920, and it was unani-
mously decided to dispense with all literary exercises and de-
vote the day to his memory. After the transaction of the neces-
sary business, the meeting adjourned, and the members attended
the funeral of our deceased secretary. The afternoon session
was entirely devoted to memorial exercises in his honor. Many
eulogistic addresses were delivered and ex-Judge Harman
Yerkes, Warren S. Ely, and Miss Mary DuBois, who were ap-
pointed a committee to draw up suitable resolutions on his death,
prepared and submitted the following, which were adopted :
"WHEREAS, Clarence D. Hotchkiss, became a member of the Bucks
County Historical Society January 21, 1896, was elected Secretary and
Treasurer June 14, 1906, and was elected a Director on January 16,
1912, and filled these several positions with eminent fidelity and ability
until his sudden death, on the morning of Januarj^ 14, 1920, And
"WHEREAS, it seems especially fitting that the officers and members
of this Society gathered at our annual meeting this 17th day of Janu-
ary, 1920, should give some testimony of our appreciation of the many
estimable qualities of our deceased colleague, in recognition of his ser-
vices and our respect for his memorj':
"THEREFORE, Be it Resolved, that in the death of Mr. Clarence
D. Hotchkiss, this Society has sustained the loss of a most faithful,
efficient officer, whose position, not only as a member and active worker
in this Society and as an honored and respected member of the com-
munity in which he has lived, cannot well be filled, and whose death
will long be mourned and memory cherished by his associates and
neighbors,
"RESOLVED, That a copy of these resolutions be published in the
newspapers of Doylestown and forwarded to the members of his family.
Resolved that the meeting adjourn for the purpose of enabling our of-
ficers and members to attend the funeral of the deceased, this afternoon.".
Mr. Hotchkiss married June 19, 1878, Albertine Walton of
Doylestown, who with a son, George S. Hotchkiss, who succeeded
his father as editor of the Doylcsto^cn Daily Intelligencer, and a
daughter, Sarah, wife of H. J. Shellenberger, editor of The Call,
a newspaper published at New Cumberland, Pa., survive him.
An Ancient Indian Tobacco Pipe from Bucks County.
BY DR. HENRY C. MERCER, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Buckingham Meeting House, Meeting, June 12, 1920.)
MR. MATTHIAS HALL, who has kindly presented this
tobacco pipe to our society, will tell you how it came into
the possession of his family many years ago, upon a
farm on Pebble Hill near Doylestown.
The pipe belongs to a class of objects made or decorated by
Indians with cast lead or pewter. Numerous pipes from the
red pipe stone, or cat-
linite quarry, Minne-
sota, have been deco-
rated by Indians by
pouring molten lead
upon incisions in the
stone. W. M. Bea-
champ illustrates pipes
made entirely of cast
lead, by Indians in
New York.^ Some of
these were burned up
in the fire at the state-
house in Albany. In-
dian cast lead or pew-
ter pipes have been
found, and are now
shown, in museums in
Canada. The Amer-
FiGURE 1 ican Indian Museum
Delaware Indian wooden tobacco pipe inlaid pvpavpfprl at Ipact r,nf^
with lead, presented to the Society by Matthias excdvateo ar leaSt one
Hall of wrightstown. of these cast lead or
pewter pipes, in the Delaware Indian burial ground at the "Misink
flats" a few years ago.- But this pipe of ours, like several which
1 Metallic Implements of the New York Indians, by W. M. Beau-
champ, New York State Museum Bulletin No. 55, 1902. Figures 79,
127, 130, 145, 146, etc.
- Exploration of a Munsie Cemetery near Montague, N. J., by G.
G. Heye and G. H. Pepper. American Indian Museum, New York,
Plate 13.
236
AN ANCIENT INDIAN TOBACCO PIPE FROM BUCKS COUNTY
Col. Paxson has shown you, belongs to the rare class in which
the molten metal has been poured upon wood, not upon stone.
In this pipe you see (when turned toward the smoker), the face
of a turtle or snake still showing traces of a red pigment. The
figure of another turtle (the totem of one of the three clans of
then Lenni Lenape or Delware Indians who inhabited Bucks
county), has been cut
into the wood, and shows
in the metal around the
orifice of the tobacco
hole or bowl, the inter-
ior of which bowl is en-
tirely lined with the cast
material, a result wdiich
could have been accom-
plished either by filling
up the bowl with molten
lead and hollowing it
out, or suspending a ball
of clay in the bowl dur-
ing the casting.
The discovery of ob-
jects like this once raised
the question whether the
prehistoric Indian un-
derstood the art of cast-
ing in lead before the
coming of the white
men, which may now
be answered as follows :
Museum in Washington
FIGURE 2
Delaware Indian wooden tobacco pipe.
Top view of Figure 1 showing a turtle inlaid
in lead around the tobacco bowl.
First, the authorities at the National
and in the far west, inform us that
none of the lead decorated catlinite pipes thus far found have,
in their opinion, been made by Indians before white contact.
Second, we learn from the Davenport (Iowa) Academy of Sci-
ences, the Museum of the American Indian, New York and else-
where, that no casting in lead or pewter, of prehistoric date, has
yet been found in any of the mounds.
Third, according to Beauchamp, Roger Williams says in the
seventeenth century (1643) that the art of casting in lead was
AN ANCIENT INDIAN TOBACCO PIPE FROM BUCKS COUNTY 237
very early learned by the New England Indians from the white
men. Fourth, this statement is all the more conclusive and com-
prehensive, when we reflect that guns, shooting leaden bullets,
were among the first objects sold by white traders to Indians in
the seventeenth century, and that the purchase of such a gun
compelled the Indian to buy a store of pure lead, and a bullet-
mould with it ; in other words to immediately learn the art of
melting and casting pure lead, in order to make his weapon ef-
fective ; and having done so, we can understand that under the
tuition of white traders he would soon have cast the material
into other forms than bullets.
Fifth. To the writer's knowledge, no geologist asserts that pure
native lead has been found in the northern United States. If
found in the form of an ore (galena), it would have been of no
more use to the Indian than any other piece of hard or soft rock,
it therefore follow^s that the stores of lead, purchased by Indians
from traders, were not fragments of galena, but pigs or ingots of
pure metal, smelted out of the ore in Europe, brought over here
and thus sold to the natives. When the Indian loaded himself down
with a bag or pounch of this heavy strange material, the inference
is irresistable, that he did not carry it long, but soon hid it in the
woods, at places available in the range of his hunting trips. And
this would verify the traditions which have survived among the
farmers at New Galena in Bucks county and on the Susquehanna"
3 At "Hartyaken" on the North Branch of the Neshaminy creek,
west of Fountainville, in Bucks county, Pa., and on the North Branch
of the Susquehanna river near Hummel's wharf, Snyder county, Pa.,
and at Little Wapwalopen, Luzerne county. Pa., as noted by the writer
in Vol. XL p. 123 of the Bucks County Historical papers. In a maga-
zine "Now and Then," 1890, published at Muncy, Pa., page 186, found
for the writer by Mr. Horace M. Mann, one of these stories surviving on
the West Branch of the Susquehanna near Muncy, is contradicted by an
aged Indian in 1825, who had then revisited near Muncy, the old home
of his tribe. He considered that his ancestors had deceived the pioneers,
by pretending to discover stores of lead previously hidden by them in
the woods for that purpose.
LATER NOTE ON THE INDIAN NAME OF HARTYAKEN.—
The fortunate definite preservation in 1891 of the Indian lead myth as-
-ociated with the name "Hartyaken," in our volume II, to which I
have referred, and a note received February 8, 1925, from Dr. Amandus
Johnson, author of Swedish Settlements on the Delaware, etc., also the
popular survival of the name in New Britain township, as applied to
the upper part of the North Branch of the Neshaminy (about three
miles northeast of New Galena), as associated with Indians finding
lead, and finally the later discovery and mining of galena ore (C. 1865)
238 AN ANCIENT INDIAN TOBACCO PIPE FROM BUCKS COUNTY
and elsewhere to the effect that hunting parties of white men,
accompanied by Indians, when their bullets were exhausted, had
their stores replenished by the Indians disappearing for a long
time in the forest, to return with fresh supplies of bullet ma-
terial. Several small lead pigs or ingots, stamped with the names
of traders or companies, have been found at Indian village sites
near the great lakes, and are now in the possession of museums.
at New Galena, distinguish the "Hartyaken" story as one of the most
significant Indian myths in the eastern United States. Dr. Johnson
writes:
"I am inclined to believe that Hardyhickon (Hartyaken), is a cor-
ruption of Abru-ti-mickan, or Arr-ti-hickan-ing, meaning "the Bullet-
Mould Bag" or at the place of the bullet-mould bag, i.e., where the
bullet-mould was hidden or kept. A cognate in another dialect for
bullet-mould, is alluns-hicken (arruns-hickan) ; allunsi-nuti (arrunsi-
nuti), shot bag, bullet bag. Brinton Dictionary- 18. The name was
perhaps also applied to the "little rivulet" i.e., the first to enter the
North Branch (right bank) about one mile west of the turnpike above
Fountainville, by the Indians, later transferred to the North Branch of
the Neshamuny creek, in which case Hardyhickon may be a corruption
of Arr-ti-hick-anne, or Ar-t-ick-anne."
The Divining Rod in Bucks County.
BY HORACE M. MANN, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Buckingham Friends Meeting- House, June 12, 1920.)
THE use of forked twig, or so-called divining rod, in lo-
cating water or minerals, finding hidden treasure, or de-
tecting criminals is a curious superstition that has been a
subject of discussion since the middle of the sixteenth century
and still has a strong hold on the popular mind both in Europe
and America. It is not my intention in this paper to enter into
a controversy as to the merits of the divining rod or to add to
the bulk of material on this subject by an exhaustive history of
this practice in general. But the purpose of this paper is to give
as far as possible a brief history of this operation in Bucks county.
The origin of the divining rod is lost in antiquity. Innumerable
references may be found in both ancient and modern literature,
and though it is certain that rods or wands of some kind were in
use among ancient peoples for forecasting events, finding lost
objects, and in occult practices generally, little is known of the
manner in which such rods were used or what relation, if any,
they may have to the modern device. The "rod" is mentioned
many times in the Bible in connection with miraculous perform-
ances, especially in the books of Moses. The much quoted
passage describing the "smiting of the rock" (Numbers XX,
9-11) has been regarded by enthusiasts of water witching as a
significant reference to the divining rod. Dr. Rossiter W. Ray-
mond prepared an exhaustive essay on the subject of the divining
rod in which he quotes numerous authorities proving the di-
vining rod was primarily used to detect guilt, decide future
events, advise course of action, etc., although he also found in-
stances of its use for locating metals, water, etc. What is be-
lieved to be the first published description of the rod is contained
in De Re Metallica by Georgius Agricola, translated from the
Latin edition of 1665 by H. C. Hoover.^ The Village Record
of West Chester, Vol. VII, No. 52, for July 21, 1824, makes
1 Published for the Mining Magazine Salisbury House, London, 1912, see
pp. 38-40.
240 THE DIVINING ROD IN BUCKS COUNTY
reference to an item on the divining rod as early as 1695."
I am indebted, for the preceeding brief outHne of the divining
rod to the following publications, The Divining Rod, a History
of Witching Water, by Arthur J. Ellis, Washington, D. C, 1917,
Water Supply Paper No. 416, United States Geological Survey,
also to "The Divining Rod," a paper read by Dr. Rossiter W.
Raymond before the American Institute of Mining Engineers,
February 1883.^
In its most familiar form the divining rod is a forked twig,
one fork of which is usually held in each hand in such manner
that the butt end of the twig normally points upward. The sup-
position is, that when carried to a place beneath which water or
minerals lie, the butt end will be detracted downward, or will
whirl round and round. There are many modifications in both
form and manipulation of the rod but the diviners I know all
use the rod in practically the same manner. An apple twig ap-
pears to be the favorite in Bucks county, but cherry, plum and
witch hazel were also used. I have been gathering notes for
sometime past from persons using the divining rod together with
their method of procedure, material used, and their success or
non-success. I never found anyone in Bucks county using the
forked stick for any other pui-pose than the locating of water for
wells. Almost every one that has ever tried locating water by
this method is a firm believer in its efficiency. On the other hand
nearly every one that has seen it done but never actually at-
tempted the feat is skeptical. No one using the rod appears to
have an adequate explanation of why the forked stick should
droop or turn downward toward the earth on approaching a spot
where water was nearest the surface. Several have observed
the fact that the stick would bend in one persons hands at a
certain spot but would refuse to move if carried over the same
place by another person.
The Nezv York Times has a letter from a Mr. A. J. Smart of
Freeport, N. Y., under date of November 26, 1901. in which he
says :
2 "Extracts from the old records," 10 mo. 1795, Robert Roman presented
for practicing geomanty, and divining by a stick. Grand Jury also presented
the following books, viz : Scott's Discovery of Witchcraft, and Cornelius
Agrippa's Teaching Negromancy. The court orders that as many of sai4
books can be found be produced at next court.
3 Transactions of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, Vol. XI,
pp. 411 to 446.
THE DIVINING ROD IN BUCKS COUNTY 241
"In the year 1866, I was residing in the city of Troy, N. Y. My house
was located on the hill east of the southern part of the city at an eleva-
tion of about two hundred and fifty feet above the level of the river.
This hill was composed of fine sand for a depth of eighty feet when
bed rock was reached. When I bought the property I did not have
a well dug, for I was told that watercould not be found without going
down to a great depth and into the rock. William, one of the foremen
at my factory, who I knew to be honest and conscientious, offered to
find water for me by 'water witching'. Without any faith I neverthe-
less permitted him to try the experiment in my presence. As he ap-
proached a spot under a certain pear tree the twig bent down, and it
would not bend at any other place in a garden of about two acres. I
watched the man very closely, and was satisfied that if he bent the
twig it was done unconsciously. I tried it but there was no action at
all. My son tried it with the same result, but a daughter, seven years
old, took the twig and as she approached the marked spot the twig
began to bend, and as she passed over the spot she gave a little scream
and dropped the twig within six inches of the place marked by William.
She said it felt as if she had hold of the poles of an electric battery.
This satisfied me that there was no deception being practiced; that there
was a mysterious force here that would develop only under favorable
conditions. I had a well digger come and water was found at a depth
of seventeen feet. Eleven years after this experiment the same man,
William, located water on a farm I owned ten miles southeast of Troy,
in the town of Sand Lake, N. Y., by the same process — a witch hazei
forked twig — and I found water within twenty feet, though the last
ten feet was blasted in rock. I write this, giving you facts. I shall not
attempt to explain the cause of this phenomenon but to show you how
careful we should be in calling a thing a myth because we do not under-
stand it."
The same paper has a letter from J. Brinton White of New York,
November 26, 1901: "A number of years ago in Lancaster county,
Penna., desiring to have a well dug, I was asked by a man, who claimed
to have the power, to let him locate the well for me by the use of the
divining rod. I consented and watched the man very closely. I noticed
that the rod was attracted strongly to the earth whenever the man
passed over a certain point. After watching for some time, I noticed
that, while the rod did deflect strongly to the earth, it did so by going
the longer distance instead of by the shorter, that is, it went three-
quarters of a circle backward instead of one-quarter of a circle down-
ward toward the earth. I took the rod and found this was easily ac-
complished by pulling the prongs of the fork apart not much more than
the eighth of an inch, the rod would make the three-quarters revolution
and point to the earth, while by pressing the prongs together the rod
would rise and resume its former position. After closely questioning
the man I could not make up my mind whether he was a dupe to his
242 -THE DIVINING ROD IN BUCKS COUNTY
own action or not. It seemed to me possible that he had made up his
mind from the lay of the land that a certain spot would be a good place
to find water, and then he unconsciously made the rod so point."
George Smith, Doylestown, has never failed to find water at
places marked by him with the use of the divining rod. He
always used apple wood of no particular growth so long as it
was strong enough not to split at the fork. He never claimed
any special dispensation of providence or other unusual powers
and in fact regards his ability in this line as an unexplainable
force of nature but perfectly natural without any idea of quack-
ery or fraud. However, he found, as others did, that while the
rods worked for him they would not perform for others. His
brother, John, was never able to accomplish any results with the
forked sticks. Mr. Smith learned this art from Enos Geil.
Henry Earner, Doylestown, desiring a well dug asked Mr. Smith
to locate water for him with his divining ord. When Mr. Smith
selected a certain spot as likely to produce the best results Mr.
Earner laughed and within an inch of where Mr. Smith had in-
dicated pulled out an iron pin and told Mr. Smith that there
was the place Enos Geil had located for water a short time be-
fore. At the first pottery of Dr. Mercer's above Doylestown,
Mr. Smith found water by means of the rod and later indicated
the greatest depth they would have to go for it. When the well
was dug water was found five feet nearer the surface than in-
dicated. Dr. Mercer and John Rufe of Doylestown, were with
Mr. Smith at this time. Franz Nace at Dublin, dug a well
found with the divining rod by Mr. Smith and water came in so
strong at eighteen feet that the workmen were unable to get out
the large stones loosened by the blast. Also at the farm of
Anthony Grass, Nace's Corner, water was easily found and the
depth indicated by Mr. Smith by this method. Mr. Smith tells
me that the use of the divining rod made him nervous at the
time and the efifect did not wear oflf for several days. When water
was located he could tell by a trill running through him as well
as by the movement of the sticks. He held the rod with the
point of the fork away from him and the rod turned backward
toward him by the longest segment of the circle instead of turn-
ing directly downward to the earth. He regards his ability to
determine the depth of the water as greater than his ability to
THE DIVINING ROD IN BUCKS COUNTY 243
merely locate it. This is a trade secret he does not care to reveal
except that the stronger the twist there will more water be found.
Frozen ground does not interfere at all in locating the water. At
the farm of Grass' mentioned above, the well was dug in the
middle of winter when the ground was so hard it had to be
blasted the same as ro.ck.
Mathias H. Hall writes in the following letter to me of De-
cember 15, 1919:
"These water-smellers as they used to be called when I was a boy
used an apple stick of two years growth. About the year 1851 my
father, who lived midway between Doylestown and Bushington, now
Furlong, wanted to dig a well and got one of those professional men.
After digging twenty-seven feet he came to water and it is probable
that he could have reached water anywhere on the farm at that depth.
John Flack the same year wished to dig a well. He too got one of the
professionals to tell him where to dig who picked out a place about
fifty feet from the spot where Flack wanted to dig his well. After
digging thirty feet or more and not coming to water he quit digging and
then went to dig where he wanted to have the well and got plenty of
water several feet nearer the surface. Some of these professionals
claimed to know how deep they would have to dig to reach water.
George Geil wishing to dig a well also got one of these professionals
who told him where to dig and how deep to go to get water. He
missed the guess by about five feet. There was a spring of water about
one hundred and fifty feet from where he dug the well and almost any-
one could have made as good a guess. These professionals as far as I
know were all German Mennonites who had their influence on their
Quaker and Scotch-Irish neighbors."
Dr. J. T. Rothrock, of West Chester, informed me on August
29, 1919, that he had often seen the divining rod used for finding
water and that they were always successful, but he thought that
in view of the fact that all he had observed use it were ex-
perienced men that might allow themselves to be influenced large-
ly by their judgment of where water was likely to be found. He
saw rods of apple, witch hazel, cherry and plum, used. He never
saw it used for locating minerals or metals.
John J, Rufe, a plumber of Doylestown, has often seen the
divining rod tried and thinks the operation is governed more by
his knowledge and judgment than by any operation of nature.
He watched John Trainer, of Doylestown, attempt to locate
water at the Fordhook farms. Trainer indicated the spot where
244 THE DIVINING ROD IN BUCKS COUNTY
water would be reached at twenty-five feet below the surface,
but after digging fifty feet no water appeared.
George Long, brickmaker of Doylestown, has observed many
attempts to locate water by means of the rod on a lot owned by
his mother in Lansdale, a well was sunk fifty feet deep without
results, while on an adjoining lot owned by Mr. Holt, he (Long)
located water with the divining rod at a depth of fifteen feet.
Neighbors scoffed at his attempts pointing out his failure to find
water on similar land only one hundred feet distant. Mr. Long
always used a forked apple branch and never saw or heard of
any one useing the divining rod for locating minerals or treasure.
Samuel Hand, of Doylestown, stage-driver between Doyles-
town and Ambler, has seen water found by means of an apple
rod. He never tried it himself but believes that there is some un-
known force of nature operating,*because of the several times he
saw it tried with successful results.
John Harvey, janitor of the museum, has often used cherry or
plum branches, and always found water. He held the rod with
the point of the fork toward him and it would always turn di-
rectly by the shortest arc of the circle to the ground. Mrs.
Harvey also tried the operation and at a spot located by her hus-
band, the pull was so great she was unable to prevent it from
turning toward the earth.
In this paper I have not attempted to prepare a brief for or
against the divining rod. I have simply presented the local in-
formation as secured, and leave you to form your own opinion
from this or from personal observation, as to whether the finding
of water underground by means of a forked apple, cherry or
plum stick is the result of a hidden force of nature, or a myth
and superstition.
Wafer Irons
BY DR. HENRY C. MERCER, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Friends Meeting House, Buckingham, June 12, 1920.)
YOUR attention is called to these ancient baking instru-
ments, consisting of two iron baking-plates set on long
handles hinged together like blacksmith pincers close to
the plates, so as to press the latter together face to face during
the baking process.
They look like, but are not. waffle-irons, because while the
latter show rims on the baking-plates, for containing the baking
material (batter), and bake a waffle or spongy cake about one-
WAFER IRONS IN THE MUSEUM OF THE BUCKS COUNTY
HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
third of an inch thick, these plates are rimless, and the product
is a thin dry cake or wafer sometimes not thicker than a piece
of blotting paper.
We have in the museum, as here illustrated, six of these wafer-
irons, collected in recent years from eastern Pennsylvania and
New Jersey. Mrs. Frismuth has presented several to the Penn-
246 WAFER IRONS
sylvania Museum at Fairmont Park, and others are in private
hands, but their identity and use have been so generally forgotten,
that they have been sometimes mistaken by dealers and owners
for waffle-irons and tanners' stamps for marking hides.
They vary in length from 26 inches to 35 inches, and the tapered
handles from 20^^ inches to 29^/^ inches long, are always of
wrought iron. Sometimes one of them ends in a loose ring
hooked over its fellow which locks the apparatus and presses the
plates during the baking. The rimless baking-plates about 4^
to 7 inches in diameter, are sometimes round or oval and some-
times rectangular, sometimes thin (^^ inches), sometimes thick
(y% inches) for retaining heat. They are sometimes forged or
hammered out of the same piece of iron as the handles, and
sometimes cast, when the wrought-iron handles are fastened upon
them by screws or rivets, which latter sometimes do and some-
times do not penetrate the plate. The hinge is close to the bake-
plates, and as in pincers or tweezers turns on a rivet.
Whether cast upon them at the furnace, or carefully engraved
on the cold metal, or stamped in the red hot iron by black-
smiths with punches and chisels, the face of the plates, not clearly
seen in the picture, invariably shows designs representing tulips,
stars, zig-zags, fleurs-de-lis, hearts, symbols, ecclesiastical designs,
crosses, monograms, dates, or inscriptions set in more or less
ornate borders, and intended to impress a pattern upon the baked
product. Some of these decorations are very rude. Some show
the letters upside down or their numbers wrongly reversed so as
to stamp the name or sentence backwards. Some do and some do
not attempt to reproduce the design on both plates.
These notes would not be novel or necessary if the diction-
aries or encyclopedias, for instance the exhaustive E. H. Knights'
American Mechanical Dictionary, with its 5,000 engravings, or
Reese's Great Encyclopedia of about 1815, Charles Knights'
English Encyclopedia of 1886, or Chambers Encyclopaedia, Myers
German Conversations Lexicon, or the Encyclopedia Britannica
(ninth edition), explained their construction. Where books refer
to the uses and history of certain kinds of wafer-irons, they fail
to describe the instrument itself, or the baking process, and it is
not easy to learn that the domestic class of these irons here
shown, was probably in rather sparse use by wealthy families
and in cities, and not commonly employed, in post-colonial times.
WAFER IRONS 247
Further than this, it appears that domestic wafer-irons have
survived until the present year, and I was surprised to learn that
my aunt, Miss Fanny Chapman, had a pair and still, 1920, baked
wafers in them. She inherited them from her great-grandmother,
who was the wife of Governor Findlay, of Pennsylvania, who mar-
ried in 1791. Therefore they must have been first used about
1795, or earlier. Governor Findlay's daughter, who became the
wife of Governor Shunk, made wafers in them at Harrisburg in
the 1850's, at Christmas time, and frequently, as my aunt tells
me, sent boxes of wafers to her daughter, my grandmother, Mrs.
Henry Chapman, then living in Doylestown (to please the chil-
dren, of whom I was one). These were made according to her
inherited (great-grandmother's) receipt, as follows:
"K' lb. Butter
1 lb. Brown sugar
6 Eggs
4 teaspoonfuls rose water
Cinnamon to taste.
Make a very thick batter, beat it very light. Beat eggs with sugar
and add them with the other ingredients. Grease the iron with melted
butter and a feather. — "
After her mother's death my aunt continued to make these
cakes, as features of a dessert, rolled up rather than flat, so as
to enclose whipped cream, etc., I must have frequently eaten
them in my youth and recently, without distinctly remembering
the fact, or knowing how they were baked.
In this instance Miss Chapman's round bake-plates are made
of cast, not wrought iron, are decorated with fieurs-de-lis, and
the wrought handles attached to the plates with rivets which do
not penetrate the latter, show the ring clamp.
My aunt's present cook, Katrina Dinkelacher, this week, June,
1920, baked the wafers here shown in these irons in about three
minutes according to her own receipt, brought from Bavaria,
twenty-six years ago, as follows :
"Stir together Yi lb. powdered sugar,
14 lb. butter, then add
6 well beaten eggs
1 teaspoonful ground cinnamon
54 teaspoonful grated nutmeg
^ teaspoonful rose water
Yz teaspoonful grated lemon rind
248 WAFER IRONS
Enough flour to make a thin batter of the right consistency to spread
with a knife on the baking iron, which is previously heated on the top
of the range. Bake to a golden brown and roll at once. If any batter
spreads outside of the iron trim it oflf with a knife. Enough to make
thirty-two cakes."
Katrina says that she has made similar wafers on similar
irons for a private family near Stuttgart about 1825.
To further show that wafers of this sort have been and con-
tinue to be made in private families, on Christmas, at weddings,
holidays, etc., and as a feature of desserts in general, I was not
surprised to learn that my Philadelphia cook book, of date about
1890, gives a receipt for making the batter for lemon wafers, as
does also the Royal Cookery Book, by Jules Gouffe, London,
Samson & Low, 1868, the latter adding that the wafers can be
made not only thus with fluid batter, but also with stiffened
dough, rolled into balls and squeezed flat between the plates,
and then trimmed off if any dough protrudes beyond the rims,
while the former books says, that lacking the wafer-irons, you can
bake the wafers on sheets of paper laid in a pan in the oven.
Both books refer to, but do not describe the irons used.
At this point of my investigation, I telephoned to J. F. Miller's
household supply store, 1612 Chestnut street, Philadelphia, and
he informed me that he rarely sold wafer-irons to private per-
sons, but could still furnish me with a pair, which he did,
and these I now show with cast iron plates, decorated with cast
floral designs and equipped with a ring clamp, but made in a
factory and not by hand, as the last of the domestic series.
A few days later, I learned from a former neighbor, Mrs.
Schroth, then by chance visiting me, that all Catholic churches
were still continually making wafers in similar irons for the host
bread used in the communion ceremony and mass.
I visited the Sisters at St. Mary's Catholic church in Doyles-
town, who showed me the wafer-irons used at the Doylestown
church, probably since its foundation in 1850. As here shown
in the illustration, these irons, constructed like all the others, are
26^^^ inches long, and show heavy oblong cast iron or steel bake-
plates ^ inches thick and 6% inches in longest diameter, only
one of which is stamped, or probably engraved, with two crosses
upon a grassy hill, between two thorn bushes, and surrounded
with a double rimmed border enclosing twelve little stars, and
WAFER IRONS 249
two small singly rimmed circles containing small crosses com-
posed of dots. The wrought iron handles, equipped with a ring
lock as usual, are fastened upon the plate by round headed
screws, which do not penetrate the latter.
The sisters informed me that they baked the communion
wafers or host-bread in about one minute, upon these irons, with
a thin batter composed of selected very white wheat flour and
water, poured on the plates, previously heated over the oil stove,
and waxed with bees wax from the altar tapers, after which the
ragged borders on the cakes were pared off if necessary with a
knife or, if kept whole, trimmed with scissors. After baking,
the four circular patterns adorned with the large and small
crosses, were stamped out with sharpened circlets of steel mounted
on handles. They further said that when the wafer-irons were
not at hand, in an emergency, wafers, minus the design, could
be, and were sometimes baked on smoothing-irons. Also,
that the church never permitted the baking of these wafers by
public bakers, but always now required it of sisters representing
various religious orders associated with the various churches,
lacking whom, a church had the work done by sisters commis-
sioned from a distance.
But they also said that the modern church supply houses still
sold the wafer-irons to churches in their original form, although
they had recently made and now supply stoves and stamps worked
by gas, oil and electricity, which would produce sometimes four
thousand wafers in an hour.
Besides this the Catholic Encyclopedia tells us in an article by
Father Shulte, after noting the existence of very old specimens of
ecclesiastical wafer-irons in France, that for a long time the old-
est specimens, there preserved in museums and private collec-
tions, had been dated in the twelfth century, until recently, when
a still older pair of irons had been found at Carthage ascribed
to the sixth or seventh century.
I further learned that St. John's Catholic church at Haycock
Run, founded in the eighteenth century, had inherited a very
old pair of these irons, no longer used there. Father Andre
has kindly presented them to our society.
After the Reformation the Protestant churches generally
abandoned the use of wafers, but Luther retained them, and the
250 WAFER IRONS
Lutherans continued to use them until late in the nineteeenth
century, so that some of the old Lutheran churches may still
have a pair of these now disused wafer-irons in their possession,
preserved as heirlooms.
There are or have been other wafers made for various pur-
poses, and these, as finished products therefore, might be classed,
as far as our present knowledge goes, as follows :
L The ecclesiastical wafer as described.
2. The domestic wafer as described.
3. The documentary wafer, in which a thin round cake, large
or small, is mixed with glue, and has been used until the middle
of the nineteenth century at least, for sealing letters, fixing seals
to papers, stamps upon deeds, etc.
4. The medicinal wafer, in which small concave tablets, rimmed
with glue, may enclose a nauseus dose of medicine, used in the
nineteenth century, and possibly still used by old fashioned
druggists.
5. The fish-wafer, a thin tablet thus baked broken or cut, to
feed gold fish, as now sold by apothecaries.
6. The confectioner's wafer, as now sold, placed under baked
cakes, or used as a dessert with tea or coffee or to enclose ice
cream.
Oil, gas and electric stoves and stamps advertised in a
leaflet from the Chicago Catholic Supply House, here shown, now
used to hasten the baking and stamping of wafers, are supplant-
ing the ancient hand irons here described, but the process, name-
ly the baking of very thin cakes, between two tightly pressed hot
iron plates, remains the same.
HEXAGONAL SCHOOLHOUSE, LOWER SAUCON TOWNSHIP,
NORTHAMPTON COUNTY, PA.
Erected in 1833, abandoned for school purposes in 1886. It was tlien con-
verted into a dwelling liouse, and the dormer windows added.
Later, for a few years before it was demolislied, it was
used as a cliicken house. From photograph
taken in 18 92 by Miss Laura M. Riegel
(now Mrs. Chester P. Cook).
Octagonal or So-called "Eight Square" Schoolhouses.
BY ALDEN M. COLLINS, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Friends Meeting House, Buckingliam, June 12, 1920.)
"Then come along, come along, make no delay;
Come from every dwelling, come from every way,
Come from where the mighty waters of the broad St. Lawrence flow,
Come from Florida and Kansas, come from Maine and Mexico;
Bring your slates and books along, and don't be a fool
For Uncle Sam is rich enough to send us all to school."
AS the peculiar style of schoolhouses known as "Eight-
Square", are no longer used for school purposes, and the
old ruins fast going into decay, it seems worth while to
record the little information that can be gathered concerning them.
With the greatly appreciated assistance of many persons inter-
ested in preserving some history of the methods by which our
forebears were educated in rural districts, several accounts have
been secured ; and while these recollections by no means tell a
complete story, we are reminded of our early days at school, and
compare them with the developed schoolhouses and methods to
be found at the present time in any prosperous community.
In the November 1907 issue of the Pennsylvania German
(Vol. VIII, p. 517) Prof. E. M. Rapp of Hamburg, Pa., de-
scribes the Eight Cornered School-building at Sinking Spring
as follows :
"At the eastern end of the village of Sinking Spring in Berks county,
near the Harrisburg pike and near a recently abandoned toll-gate,
stands an eight-cornered building that almost invariably attracts the
eyes of passers-by, especially of strangers on trains and trolleys. This
octagonal building was formerly used as a schoolhouse and was a type
of school-buildings of which many were scattered through the Middle
Atlantic States over a century ago. The constructors no doubt con-
cluded that, if it was built octagonal, space would be economized. It
is the only building of its kind remaining in the county, although aban-
doned for school-purposes over fifty years ago. Still a few of these
buildings are used for school-purposes in the near-by counties of Bucks
and Montgomery. For the last half century the structure has been
used as a dwelling. It is of stone, very substantial, the walls being
three feet in thickness, plastered and whitewashed on the interior and
exterior. The outside is the same as when it was constructed, except
252 OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "EIGHT-SOU ARe" SCHOOLHOUSES
for a porch in front, an addition on the east end and a dormer-window.
The inside still retains the umbrella-like rafters." *****
It is interesting to know that the immediate predecessor of the
octagonal schoolhouse in country districts during Colonial times
was the log schoolhouse with a rough puncheon floor or a dirt
floor. During and immediately after the Revolutionary War the
rough log building was replaced in the Middle States, by a bet-
ter schoolhouse of the octagonal shape, so much in favor for
meeting-houses as well as for school purposes. In Eastern Penn-
sylvania these octagonal houses were nearly always built of
stone, like the ones we have herein described.
In the same issue of the Pennsylvania-German, to which I have
referred, an old octagonal schoolhouse on the Bath road is de-
scribed by Mr. John R. Laubach of Nazareth, Pa., as follows:
"Es alt achteckig Schulhaus an der Bather Schtross, was a unique
and interesting building of Pennsylvania-Germandom. It is so-called
on account of its peculiar construction, being octagonal in form, the
only one of its kind, according to my knowledge in this section of the
country. It stood along-side of the highway from Easton to Mauch
Chunk, in Upper Nazareth township, Northampton county. Pa., about
a mile west of the village of Smoketown and two miles southeast of
Bath, near the east branch of the Monocacy creek. It was built in
1828 by means of contributions from the surrounding community, and
for more than fifty years it stood as a landmark known far and wide.
Its walls were built of limestone quarried in the vicinity; the mason-
work was done by Daniel Michael, who for many years lived on the
same road opposite the schoolhouse. Its w-alls were eighteen inches
thick, solidly built, neatly plastered and w-hitewashed on the inside and
rough-cast on the outside. They could easily have defied the storms
of centuries yet to come had not a building of more modern construc-
tion been desired.
This old structure was known as the Union Schoolhouse and con-
trolled by six trustees, three from Upper and three from Lower Naz-
areth township, selected from its patrons in the district. Among the
best known of these trustees were Adam Daniel, better known as
Squire Daniel, from the fact that he was a justice of the peace for a
number of years; George Hellick, Peter Rohn and others, all of whom
departed from the scenes of this life many years ago.
The door of the schoolhouse was on the southside. Opposite the
door on the north side was the teacher's desk, raised on a small plat-
form. Extending along six sides of the room were two rows of desks,
one for the larger pupils, facing the wall, and one for the smaller ones,
facing the stove. The desks were of the simplest construction and
bore many a penknife-carving made by the pupils in days gone by.
The benches around the larger desks were about two feet high and
OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "eIGHT-SQUARe" SCHOOLHOUSES 253
ten inches wide, standing loose on the floor; every now and then one
toppled over and made a disturbance. This was generally followed by
a sharp reprimand from the teacher, and the one at fault was only too
glad if the master did not use the rod, of which there was generally a
good supply on hand on the window behind the teacher's desk.
I remember, one Sunday afternoon when we had singing-school,
that a worthy old gentleman of the neighborhood, sitting all alone on
one side of these benches, became so interested in the singing from
old Weber's Notabuch with its character notes that, in some way or
other, the bench dropped out from under him. He was left suspended
without any support but the desk behind, and the smaller bench before
him, on which he had rested his feet. All present were greatly amused,
and amid the tittering he could not refrain from exclaiming: "So
veidamta Hinkelschtanga!" (Such d chicken roosts.)
In the middle of the room stood an old wood stove. This was later
replaced by a coal stove. In the yard in front of the schoolhouse was a
big pile of wood, and many a scholar was only too glad to be allowed
to go out and saw and split the same, rather than study his tiresome
lessons. In the frame of the window behind the teacher's desk was
the black-board, about four feet wide and five feet high, which could
be raised or lowered as desired, but little use could be made of it. On
one side of the door was a place for the water-bucket, also a board
which could be turned around, having the words "OUT" and "IN"
cut in large letters on the same, to be used by the pupils as occasion
required."
The plan showing how these schoolhouses were fitted up was
secured from a letter written to Dr. B. F. Fackenthal. Jr., and
is an excellent illustration of the interior of these early seats of
learning where many people, both men and women, wdio have be-
come widely known for their usefulness to their country and the
community in which they liVed, first learned their a b c's and
the many essentials by which they found themselves able to live
useful lives.
As the letter and diagram prepared by Mr. Laubach whose ac-
count of the Bath road schoolhouse is so excellent, it seems fitting
they should be presented here as part of this paper.
Nazareth, Pa., Nov. 15, 1907.
Dr. B. F. Fackenthal, Jr.
Riegelsville, Pa.
My dear Doctor Fackenthal: —
Your esteemed favor asking about the old schoolhouse on
the Bath road is received and contents noted. The house was built in
the shape of an octagon, not hexagon. The following sketch will show
you a ground plan of it, with position of windows, door, desks, benches,
stove, teacher's platform and chair, also the blackboard which operated
254 OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "eIGHT-SQUARE'' SCHOOLHOUSES
with counterbalances so that it could be raised or lowered. The only
other one like it, that I ever saw, was in Moore township, near Point
Phillips, in Northampton county, but that too was torn down many
years ago.
• Yours with esteem,
John R. Laubach.
Dr. Fackenthal advises me, that he very well remembers an
hexagonal (not octagonal) schoolhouse, which stood on Lau-
bach's creek, near the village of Lower Saucon in Lower Saucon
township, Northampton county, on the south side of the road
leading from Hellertown to Durham, about midway between
Lower Saucon and Old Williams township churches, having
passed by it scores of times when a school was maintained there-
in. Mr. Joseph E. Ruch, who lives quite near its site, informs
OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "eIGHT-SQUARe" SCHOOLHOUSES 255
him that this six sided schoolhouse was erected under the lead-
ership of his grandfather, Christian Ruch, in 1833, which was
before the pubhc school system of Pennsylvania was begun. Mr.
Ruch says it was the only school he ever attended. The funds
for it were gathered in the neighborhood from the patrons of the
school. Prior to its erection there was a log schoolhouse to the
northwest thereof. Mr. Howard Mitman, who also lives in that
neighborhood, informs Dr. Fackenthal that he has a distinct
recollection of this schoolhouse. He says it was six sided, and
moreover had a photograph taken after the dormer windows
were removed, from which he had a half-tone etching made, used
to illustrate his article published in The Northampton Farmer,
Vol. H, No. 3. for March 1921. In that article he describes the
interior of the building as follows :
"The internal arrangement followed the lines of the building. The
stove stood in the middle of the room, the pipe going straight up to
the chimney above. The entrance door was in the middle of one of
the sides; directly opposite was a platform with the teacher's desk.
Long desks followed the two side walls remaining on each side of the
building, wdth backless benches for the pupils. There were in all four
rows of desks, with two rows of recitation benches in front of them."
This six sided schoolhouse was abandoned in 1886, when a new
and modern building was erected on the opposite side of the
road. An etching of the hexagonal building, taken in 1892, when
it was used as a dwelling house is shown herewith.
In Montgomery county there is an octagonal schoolhouse on
North Lane, about a mile from Conshohocken, which was re-
cently sold, and is now occupied as a dwelling house. It was
there that the late Hon. James B. Holland received part of his
early education.
Another octagonal schoolhouse, still standing, and preserved
as a relic, is on the Dunwoody estate, on the pike leading from
Philadelphia to Newtown Square in Delaware county. Situated
in a community where so many institutions of learning are lo-
cated, it is a quaint curiosity and a reminder of the past.
The foundation walls of an octagon schoolhouse in Moreland
township, Montgomery county, near Paper Mills, are still stand-
ing and being near the new schoolhouse the boys find them of
great use for forts when it snows. The property is now (1920)
owned by W. W. Frazier.
256 OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "eIGHT-SQUARe''' SCHOOLHOUSES
On the northern slope of Great Valley in Chester county, the
early settlers built an eight-square schoolhouse, overlooking one
of the most beautiful farming districts in the United States.
After being used for a school for many years it was abandoned.
As it was substantially built of stones, it was easily restored and
is now in perfect condition and cared for by the owners.
In Bucks county, near the village of Oxford Valley, Falls
township, there is an eight-square schoolhouse, built in the usual
was and leased for a long term of years, by Charles Henry Moon,
and is now being cared for. The lapse of time made it necessary
to appoint new trustees in order to save the old schoolhouse from
decay, as it had become very much out of repair. It was there-
fore rescued and restored, so that most of its original design is
preserved. It is in care of Mr. Moon, who is one of the new
trustees, and is now being kept safe from harm, and is a good
example of that particular kind of schoolhouse. One of the best
known teachers of a century ago, who taught there between 1825
and 1830, was Steward Dupy.
In New Britain township, Bucks county, about a mile and a
half from Fountainville, and facing the Ferry road, an eight-
square schoolhouse was occupied for school use for many years
during the first half of the nineteenth century. It stood on a lot
set aside for school purposes on the Stewart homestead, known
to many of us as the Arthur Chapman farm. It was torn down
because it was no longer fit for restoring. A well-known teacher
of that school was Prof. Clark, a graduate of Yale College, who
conducted the private school established on the farm of Benjamin
W. James. Many children of well known Bucks county families
were scholars there.
An eight-square schoolhouse, built of stone, and in general
design the same as the others I have described, was located on the
Durham road near the Plumstead township line in Buckingham
township. It was torn down some years ago as it had served its
usefulness when better schools came into being.
\ Among the buildings in old "Logtown" now known as Penn's
Park in Wrightstown township situated at the toll-gate site on
the Pineville and Richboro turnpike, known also as Second
Street Pike, at the point where it is crossed by the Swamp road,
stands on old eight-square schoolhouse. The indications are that
OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "EIGHT-SQUARE'' SCHOOLHOUSES 257
the land on which this house stands was granted by WilHam
Penn to James Ratchffe, a minister among Friends, who died
soon after the purchase. It was owned subsequently by the
Thompson, Kirk and Cunnard families until 1799 when the
property was purchased by Joseph Burson. By a lease recorded
at Doylestown (Deed Book 33, p. 403, April 1, 1802), it was
leased for a term of ninety-nine years to Hugh Thompson, James
Dungan, Watson Welding, Joseph Sackett, George Chapman,
John Thompson, Thomas Thompson, Amos Warner, Ebenezer
Cunnard, Thomas Gain and Jesse Anderson for the purpose of
"having a schoolhouse kept for the benefit and advantage of him-
self and others of the neighborhood. To have and to hold the
said lot of land in trust for themselves, their heirs and assigns
for the special use and purpose above mentioned and for no
other use or purpose whatsoever, for and during the full end
and term of ninety-nine years". As this lease was made in the
spring of 1802 no doubt the building was made ready for school
purposes during the summer. The side walls are built of stone
of several shades and no attempt at uniformity was used. As
they appear today like a bent stone wall the crudeness of the
construction of this old house is manifest. The original roof has
been replaced by tin in place of the old wooden fan design. The
building is cared for by recent purchasers who use it for a sum-
mer camping place. Enough of the original materials used in its
construction remain, however, to make it an interesting study for
any one interested in the kind and pattern of building materials
used by the ordinary mechanic of that period. In design it is the
same as all the others. It was used for a schoolhouse for more
than fifty years and enjoys the distinction of having had several
well known teachers during its history. Former pupils of this
school can be found in many states. So well do they remember
the old building of stone, and the firewood supplied by the neigh-
borhood and the quaint old door facing south, that a wish is
voiced by them all that "it might be kept in good repair for
many years to come". The number of men and women who
"got their first schooling here", is so large that no attempt to men-
tion any of them by name has been made.
The furniture used in these schoolhouses was very plain, and
not furnished by contract or made in some large factory, but
258 OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "eIGHT-SQUARE'' SCHOOLHOUSES
made by a local carpenter or cabinet maker. Against the walls
all around the room was built a sloping shelf, about three feet
high, with no line to indicate how much space each pupil should
occupy and serving the purpose of a desk. In front of these
common desks long backless benches were placed on which the
older pupils sat facing the wall. While they studied they leaned
against the edge of the shelf-like desk and when they wrote or
ciphered they rested their exercise books and slates on it. Under
it, on a shelf that was not so wide as the upper one, the pupils
kept their books and other school-belongings when not in use.
A table was placed about the middle of the room, with lower
benches on each side of it, and there the smaller children spent
the school hours over the lessons assigned to them by the school
teacher. So far as possible a young man of promise in the
neighborhood was selected as teacher because he had ambitions to
become something else, and now and then because he was not
"cut out for a farmer" but would make a better teacher or
preacher, at least he enjoyed being so judged by his friends.
Taking into account of course the presumption that he must
have considered this distinction as a mark of honor, no matter
how hard the hard-headed directors and an occasional pupil
whose head was hard, made his daily task. The number of chil-
dren a schoolhouse would hold depended entirely on the size of
the pupil and how closely they could be packed on the benches.
The number in midwinter was much greater than in the fall
and spring when the older children were kept home to help with
the work. This being the method by which domestic science,
agriculture and manual training was received in those days when
children went to school to learn the three R's, reading, 'riting
and 'rithmetic. Thus learning how to calculate the price of
things at the store by mental arithmetic without using chalk or
a nail on a barrel-head or any other thing convenient which
could be used on which to cipher. On Friday afternoons spelling-
matches were often held and to these contests came the older
brothers and sisters and often other visitors. Many communities
also held spelling matches in the evening when they became quite
an event and the whole neighborhood attended and made great
fun for the young people. The master's desk at the north end
of the room opposite the door (but inside the circle of shelves
OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "eIGHT-SQUARe" SCHOOLHOUSES 259
or desks around the room), was the executive center of these
many-sided seats of learning. Besides serving the purposes of a
teacher's desk, it was a safe place for storing confiscated pen-
knives, balls, tops, marbles, jew's-harps and what not, and at
the end of a school term there were real reminders of events
which had caused pain or pleasure, as the master saw fit to ar-
range things, by using the long rod which was part of his equip-
ment or being a good fellow and let it go with a laugh enjoyed
by all hands. "Rewards of Merit" in the shape of decorated
cards with a verse of poetry were given for excellence in study
and conduct. They were secured in the same way that most such
things are won, by getting a specified number of small cards
and then exchanged for one indicating the merit of the pupil.
Many a keep-sake cabinet contains these cards, and a request to
tell who has them would show they are owned by people all
around us. From the lists of pupils who attended these old
eight-square schoolhouses may be picked an honor roll of names
good to look at and in which we all must take pride.
The seats and desks were made of pine or oak wood, and not
alw^ays of the best workmanship. They were not improved by
use as the years went by ; the unpainted or unpolished wood be-
became more stained from contact with hands, not always well
looked after, and every boy who owned a jack-knife felt his
school-life was not a success unless he demonstrated for him-
self, and those who followed him, that he possessed real talent
as a wood-carver or at least at hacking and carving some sort
of insignia to become a permanent ornament of the desk.
"Those benches are by far too high,
Their feet don't reach the floor;
Full many a wearj' back gets sick.
In that old schoolhouse at the creek.
And feels most woeful sore.
Poor innocents! behold them sit.
In miseries and woes;
It is no wonder, I declare.
If they should learn but little there,
On benches such as those."
The wood-stove of unique design occupied a place in the
middle of the room and nearly roasted the little fellows w^io
260 OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "eIGHT-SQUARE" SCHOOLHOUSES
occupied the seats near it. The wood for these stoves was usually
furnished free of charge by the patrons of the school, and the
older boys attended to keeping it cut and making the fire. In the
schoolyard the woodshed was conspicuous for its absence and the
very often green wood, wet with rain or snow, made real expert
firemen out of these boys. Now and then as the wood smoked
and the chimney or the pipe would not draw the schoolhouse
became a smokehouse and an extra play time was added to the
day's pleasure. Sometimes boys earned their tuition by cutting
wood and also keeping up the fire.
The schoolroom walls were void of any decorations except
tapestry of aelicately spun spider webs and weather-stains, due
to the directors neglecting to have leaks fixed. The light from
the small windows of small panes of glass would hardly suit us
now. Quill pens were used and the teacher took great pains and
pride in making them and teaching his scholars the art of mend-
ing them.
The real reason for building these houses "eight-square" when
the schoolhouses connected with the churches and meeting houses
were dififerent, does not appear to be accurately known. It seems
most appropriate that they should be preserved by historical so-
cieties as objects of historical interest along with all other build-
ings possessing valuable personal history.
"Still sits the schoolhouse by the road,
A ragged beggar sunning;
Around it still the sumachs grow,
And blackberry vines are running."
Early History of Bedminster Township.
RECOLLECTIONS OF WILLLAM H. KEICHLINE.^
(read by warren S. ELY.)
(Friends Meeting House, Buckingliam, June 12, 1920.)
Philadelphia, March 19, 1875.
FRIEND DAVIS,
At your request, annexed, you will find a few brief his-
torical sketches of colonial times from which you can draw
such extracts as may be desirable for your forth-coming "History
of Bucks County", or for such purposes as you may desire.
They are literally true and original, perhaps an error or two
relating to dates, might occur which you are at liberty to correct.
I have a retentive memory, running back nearly fifty years, be-
sides an occasional documentary evidence. Our mutual friend
Gov. Witte was the only person that saw them, being a Bucks
Countian, he can appreciate such things and remarked he would
like to publish a series of these sketches, as they would be of
interest to the present generation in that locality, but was pleased
that you had them, as I informed him that they were intended
for you and no one else.
Will you oblige by correcting my bad English wherever neces-
sary, as they were written from the spur of the moment. If satis-
factory, after a quiet perusal, shall be pleased to serve you
further, etc.
Truly yours,
W. H. Keichline.-
To Gen. W. W. H. Davis,
Doylestown, Pa.
COLONEL GEORGE PIPER AND THE PIPERSVILLE TAVERN.
Col. George Piper, who resided at Pipersville, Bedminster
township, Bucks county, was born in Philadelphia county, on the
1 The.se reminiscences were found among tlie papers of the late Gen. W.
W. H. Davis.
2 W. H. Keichlein, who sent these papers to General Davis, was the son of
Jacob Keichline. He died at Philadelphia, June 29, 1888, in 73d. year
of his age.
262 EARLY HISTORY OF BEDMINSTER TOWNSHIP
Wissahickon, November 11, 1755. He removed to Bucks county
and became an officer in the continental army. He married a
daughter of Arnold Lear of Tinicum township, a relative of
Tobias Lear, who was the private secretary of Gen. Washington
during the years 1791 to 1794. In 1775-76. Col. Piper lived on
part of the old Lear homestead. In 1778, he moved into the
tavern located at the intersection of the Philadelphia-Doylestown
and the Durham and York roads, as they were termed in those
days. The York road received its name by reason of its being
the direct road to New York. And the Durham road
derived its name in consequence of passing over the Durham hills
to Easton. At Stony Point a road diverged northwest via Bur-
sonville and Springtown to Bethlehem. At that time the Dur-
ham road was the only direct route from Philadelphia to Easton,
Bethlehem and Allentown. Subsequently a road was located
from Willow Grove via Blue Bell tavern and Crooked Lane to
Doylestown, Danboro, Rothrocks (Plumstedville) and to Col.
Piper's tavern, where it formed a junction with the Durham road.
The tavern at that period comprised the present (1875) cen-
tral building which was built by one Bladen about 1759. Addi-
tions were added from time to time ; during the year 1784 the
present parlor and diningroom were attached; in 1790 and 1801,
the kitchen and small room to the west of the main building,
were added. The walls of the center building are fifteen inches
thick, and it is now one of the most ancient houses in that local-
ity; it is still occupied as a tavern and in an excellent state of
preservation, a relic of the last century.^
Col. Piper died November 15, 1822. The hotel property then
passed into the hands of his son-in-law, Jacob Keichlein, who
was born in Bedminster township, September 8, 1776, and had
been in his possession thirty-six years, and in possession of the
family for upwards of eighty years. Jacob Keichlein died in
Philadelphia February 26, 1861. A great uncle, Col. Peter Keich-
lein, then residing in Easton. He was one of the first representa-
tives from Northampton county in a convention held in Phila-
delphia in the years 1773 and 1775, endorsing the action of the
3 Gen. Davis, in a paper read before the Bucks County Historical Society,
in 1892 (see Vol. II, page 81), says the old Pipersville inn stood until 1885,
when Jacob B. Crouthamel replaced it with a commodious brick house, built
on the same site.
EARLY HISTORY OF BEDMINSTER TOWNSHIP 263
continental congress. During the Revolution he raised a rifle
company in Northampton and Bucks counties, which was at-
tached to Col. Miles' regiment, promoted to lieutenant colonel, and
in command at the Battle of Gowanis, Long Island, on the 27th.
August, 1776, under Generals Lord Sterling, Putnam and Wood-
hull. The English in command on that occasion were General
Grant, Lord Cornwallis and Howe. The Hessians were under
Gen. De Heister. Lord Sterling, in the dispatches to Gen. Wash-
ington says "the English Gen. Grant was killed by some of
Keichlein's sharp-shooters."
During the period that the tavern was in possession of the
family, under its hospitable roof were entertained many distin-
guished persons of the last century. Among some of the promi-
nent friends and patrons of Col. Piper were Gen. Anthony
Wayne, Benjamin Franklin, Gov. Mifflin. Timothy Pickering,
Robert Morris, Dr. Benjamin Rush, Richard Bache, Gen. Joseph
Read, John Bayard, Dr. William Shippen, Chief Justice Tilgh-
man, Judge Peters, Judge Hopkinson, Judge Ingersoll, Capt.
Hart. Colonel Miles, Colonel Atlee, Bishop White and
Rev. Dr. Muhlenberg of Philadelphia. Here upon several oc-
casions Bishop White and Dr. Muhlenberg offered up their de-
votional exercises, and old Timothy Matlack cut his name upon
the railing of the upper porch, which was still visible in 1827,
when the railing was removed. Mayor Wharton, during the
yellow fever epidemic in 1798. boarded with his family at the
Pipersville tavern. Stephen Girard was there on his way
to Bethlehem. Col. Samuel Sitgreaves of Easton and Col.
George Taylor, one of the signers of the declaration of indepen-
dence were bosom friends of Col. Piper and William Allen,
for whom Allentown was named, was a frequent guest. Gen.
John Cadwallader spent many a pleasant hour there, amusing
himself gunning along the Tohickon creek, sometimes with Wil-
liam Logan and Casper Wistar. Frequently that good man. Dr.
George De Benneville of Branchtown was a visitor, having been
friends from boyhood with Col. Piper. Gen. Paul Mallet Provost,
called upon Col. Piper to assist him in the purchase of some
lands in New Jersey where he laid out and founded French-
town. Joseph Bonaparte, ex-king of Spain, boarded there two
weeks with his suite; he had his own French cooks and plate;
264 EARLY HISTORY OF BEDMINSTER TOWNSHIP
all that was necessary was to serve them with meats and vege-
tables and they prepared them for the king. He took quite a
fancy to the old Lombardy poplar trees in front of the house,
and told the colonel that they reminded him of their native
clime, France.
This tavern being on the main route, at that period, from
Philadelphia to Easton, Bethlehem, Allentown, Mauch Chunk and
Wilkes-Barre, and having the reputation of being one of the
best kept taverns on the road, was known all over the country
and identified with the name of Col. Piper and Mr. Keichline
for nearly a century. There was no public stage from Easton to
Philadelphia prior to the year 1792, when the following notice
appeared.
EASTON STAGE.
The subscriber takes this opportunity to inform the public,
that he has erected a new stage wagon upon springs, which will
start the 29th. April, 1792, weekly from Easton to Philadelphia.
It will start on Monday morning at 5 o'clock from the subscribers
house in Easton and arrive in Philadelphia, house of Jacob
Meitinger, sign of Gen. Washington, Vine street, return on
Thursday morning at 5 o'clock. Fare $2.00, 150 pounds of goods
allowed, 3 pence for each letter, way-passengers 3 pence per mile.
JOHN NICHOLAUS.
John Nicholaus's successor was his son Samuel, who removed
to Danboro in order to take charge of the stages, which were of
the "Gun Boat" pattern. He was succeeded in 1822, by James
Rusides, who was termed the "Land Admiral", he formed a co-
partnership with Jacob Peters of Philadelphia, and later with
Samuel and John Shouse of Easton. They placed upon the road
new Troy coaches, the first of the kind in this part of the country.
Upon the completion of the Belvidere Delaware Railroad and the
North Penn Railroad, the stages were withdrawn.
CONESTOGA WAGONS.
Conestoga wagons, as they were termed, conveyed all the
goods to and from Easton, Bethlehem, Allentown, Mauch Chunk
and Wilkes-Barre markets, they were upon the road previous to
1770; they generally had six horses with bells; the horses were
EARLY HISTORY OF BEDMINSTER TOWNSHIP 265
fed from a trough, placed temporarily upon the tongue of the
wagon. One of the finest teams driven in the last century was
owned by Michael Butz, who resided above Belvidere in New
Jersey; his team consisted of six large black horses, of equal size
and were greatly admired. Then came the Zellners, Klotzs, Sum-
stones, Bewighouses, Myers, Fretzes, Joseph and David Stover
and others. Upon the completion of the Delaware Division canal
in 1832, their occupations were gone.^
OLD MILLS OF THE LOWER PART OF BEDMINSTER TOWNSHIP.
It appears that Angany's gristmill was the first one erected.
It was built before the Revolution, on a small island forming a
junction with Deep run, east of the English Presbyterian Church.
Jacob Krout's mill, on Deep run, is presumed to be the next, and
Joseph Tyson's on Cabin run, they being built about the begin-
ning of the present or latter part of the last century. Then
comes Jacob Stover's mill on the Tohickon creek, near Keich-
lein's tavern.^ About that time Henry Black built his oil-mill on
Cabin run, on the Durham road one-half mile below Keichlein's
tavern. Joseph Drissel's mill, on the east of the Tohickon, in
Tinicum township, and one mile northeast of Keichleins', was
built about the middle of the last century, and is now (1875)
one of the oldest mills in the upper part of the county ; it is still
supplying its customers with their daily bread. Isaac Fretz built
a gristmill upon the Tohickon creek in Tinicum township, some
time after Drissel. Anthony Fretz's mill upon the same stream
in Plumstead, was built previous to the Isaac Fretz mill. These
mills, with one exception, are yet in good running condition.
Some years ago, Krout, Drissel, Fretz and Stover introduced
machinery for the manufacture of linseed oil, but when flax
seed became scarce the machinery for making linseed oil was
removed
OLD CHURCHES OF BEDMINSTER AND VICINITY.
During the early part of the last century, a few of the first-
settlers, erected a church, which they built of hewn timber; it
was located on the Durham road, two and a half miles below
4 Mr Keichlein fails to notice and give credit to the Durham boats
which carried freight down the Delaware river before roads were opened.
5 This gristmill was in operation in early colonial times.
266 EARLY HISTORY OF BEDMIXSTER TOWNSHIP
Keichlein's tavern at the intersection of the river road. A suf-
ficient space of ground was cleared on the northeast corner so as
to afford room for the church building and the graveyard. The
people had to depend upon an occasional supply pastor from other
localities, and such itinerants as came along. All traces of the
building and graveyard disappeared years ago, and not a vestige
is left to designate their location. The presumption is that the
next church, in Tinicum, was built of hewn timber and located
on the hill adjacent to the old graveyard, in which there were many
graves of a remote period. This spot is about one-fourth of a
mile above the present old Tinicum church built for the joint
worship of the German Presbyterian (Reformed) and the Luth-
erans. This building must have been removed about the year
1800, as in the year 1812, a brick church building was erected,
down at the road leading from Keichlein's tavern to Frenchtown
and Erwinna. Not long ago the brick church was removed and
gave place to a more modern edifice. The next church to be
erected was Keichlein's church, on the Tohickon creek, so called
because the land had been donated by Andrew Keichlein, who
resided near by. This was later called Tohickon church.
The old church was removed some years ago and a new one
erected upon the site. It was German Presbyterian (Reformed)
and Lutheran. Then the erection of Menonite Meeting House
runs very far back into the last century, and so too does the
English Presbyterian church (called the Irish church) at Deep
run and the Red Hill church and Kellers which is Reformed and
Lutheran.
THE OLD SCHOOLHOUSE AT DEEP RUN HILL.
The old schoolhouse at Deep Run Hill was located on the
Easton road about three-fourths of a mile above Keichlein's inn,
at the foot of the hill near the creek. It was built in 1808. by
Col. George Piper, Abraham High, William Myers, and Frederick
Keeler. Among the numerous teachers employed was Hon.
Charles B. Trego, who subsequently moved to Philadelphia where
he filled several important positions, such as president of com-
mon council, state senator, etc. Mr. Trego died a year or so ago
at an advanced age, at his residence in Germantown. The old
EARLY HISTORY OF BEDMINSTER TOWNSHIP 267
schoolhouse was torn down some years ago and is among the
bygones.
A BRAVE AND PATRIOTIC WOMAN OF CONTINENTAL TIMES.
Col. George Piper having occasion to visit Newtown, then the
county seat of Bucks county, to attend to some business, his
wife, Eve, remained at home with no one except her two chil-
dren and the hired-man. In the meantime Gibson and Geddis,
friends and companions of the outlaw Doans, paid a visit to the
inn, and finding Col. Piper absent and as was their custom be-
haved rudely. Mrs. Piper was in the kitchen engaged in ironing
at the time, and in the old chimney-corner had been placed a pan
of buckwheat batter in the process of raising. Geddis deliberate-
ly walked up, placed his boot and foot into the pan, whereup
Mrs. Piper threw the flat-iron at him, striking his arm below the
shoulder, fracturing it badly. Immediately Gibson tried to strike
her with the butt end of his whip. Whereupon she retreated into
a side room, procured the colonel's sword and drove the cowardly
rufHans from the house. Geddis being unable to mount his horse,
had to walk, leading the horse until they arrived at the farm of
George Fox, one and one-half miles, southwest from the tavern,
where old Dr. Shafifer boarded. After the doctor had set his
arm they left for their homes at Smith's Corner, in Plumstead
township. Subsequently Geddis brought suit against the cour-
ageous Mrs. Piper in the court at Newtown, but ultimately
abandoned it, fearing the vengeance of the people, as they warned
him that his precious life might be in danger. This was the
same Gibson who shot Doan in the cabin on the Tohickon creek,
for fear his evidence might implicate him in connection with the
crimes of these outlaws.
There is another incident in the early hfe of that truly patriotic
woman that should forever hold her memory green to all lovers
of patriotism throughout our land. During the struggle of the
Revolution, Col. Piper, then a captain in command of a com-
pany of militia or volunteers, located at Black Rock, had charge
of the outposts near Fort Washington. Black Rock received its
name from a flat rock lying near the York or Easton road,
where the Indians often held their councils of war and also on
this rock sacrificed their prisoners. It was known by that name
268 EARLY HISTORY OF BEDMINSTER TOWNSHIP
long after the Revolution, subsequently it was changed to Miles-
town in honor of Col. Miles, and still later changed to Branch-
town. This place was the residence of the elder DeBenneville,
father of Dr. George DeBenneville, a surgeon in the continental
army, and it was there that Capt. Piper made his acquaintance,
which lasted throughout the remainder of their lives. Capt.
Piper's soldiers were almost destitute of shoes and clothing,
when he conceived the idea of getting a furlough of twenty-four
hours, in order to enable him to go home in quest of some money.
His wife, Eve, had inherited from her father, Arnold Lear,
£325 in gold which was secreted in an old crock and buried in
the cellar. The captain having rather unexpectedly returned
and to the surprise of his good wife, she exclaimed "why, George !
what brings you home, has our little army been defeated?" "No,
Eve," he replied, "I have ridden all day and I am nearly starved."
She speedily prepared him a repast and while eating it, he told
her the object of his visit, which was to procure from her the
loan of her dowry ; without any hesitation whatever she replied
"well George, take it, together with my blessing for the good
cause." The gold was placed in a pair of old saddlebags, and in
the grey mist of the morning he bid adieu to his dear wife, and
arrived in safety back to the camp and relieved the needs of his
men. The government subsequently refunded the amount in
continental currency, which proved worthless ; it was stowed
away in a beehive in the garret. The family retain some por-
tions of it as relics of bygone days.
REMINISCENCES OF CONTINENTAL TIMES.
During the absence of Col. George Piper, upon the occasion
previously referred to, a man was arrested, while on horseback,
in the act of crossing the American lines or outposts, near Black
Rock, having upon his horse a packsaddle containing butter and
eggs destined for the British army in Philadelphia. His name was
Tyson and he resided in Bedminster township, near Col. Piper's
tavern. He was a member of the Mennonite society at Deep
Run. These people generally sided with the British during the
Revolution and their sympathies are now and always have been
with the radicals of the present time. Upon the return of the
colonel, he found Tyson in close custody, having been regularly
EARLY HISTORY OF BEDMINSTER TOWNSHIP 269
courtmarshalled. He had the decree of court modified to the
extent that his punishment was to be, that he be stripped to his
waist, tied to a tree with a dozen soldiers placed ten paces away
each supplied bountifully with eggs, and at the word "fire", his
precious body was reduced to an eggnog, his gray horse was con-
fiscated and he was allowed to depart, with the assurance, if he
ever came down that way again, that he would be shot. The tree
to which he was tied is still (1875) standing as a commemoration
of the event.
THE SHAD FISHERIES OF TINICUM.
There were a number of shad fisheries upon the Delaware river,
between the Tohickon and Tinicum creeks. "Cowells", near
Point Pleasant, in the early part of the present century, was an
exceedingly lucrative one. At one period, however, "Ridges"
was the most profitable one. Col. Piper said, that in 1810 from
1,200 to 1,500 shad were frequently caught in a single day upon
the small island, directly opposite Ridge's house. He likewise
described "Old Ned Ridge", seated in a tree on the south part of
the island, watching for the approach of a school of shad, to
pass up stream, which would enable him to make the discovery
by the ripples created upon the water, as they generally swam
near the surface. On seeing the ripples he would give notice for
the preparation of the haul. The "Cabin Fishery" was located
half-a-mile above Ridges; it was prosperous and produced con-
siderable revenue. The "Drive Factory", on the New Jersey
side of the large island, was another productive one, and the
"Sweet Briar", on the New Jersey shore opposite, was equally
profitable. Shad taken from these waters were of the finest kind,
and were caught in abundance up to 1825, and from that time
up to 1842, in fair quantities. They, however, grew less plentiful
from year to year, in that neighborhood.
ERWINNA ON THE DELAWARE RIVER.
This town was laid out by Arthur Erwin, a Scotch-Irishman,
as he was termed, dating back into the last century.*' He repre-
sented Bucks county in the legislature in the year 1785, and hav-
ing occasion to visit Luzerne county in the spring of 1791, to
See paper on Col. Arthur Erwin by Dr. Fackenthal, this volume, page 433.
270 EARLY HISTORY OF BEDMIXSTER TOWNSHIP
look after his property, was assassinated at the house of Samuel
McAfee. Some attributed this act to his sentiments derogatory to
the principles of a spirit of patriotism. Upon the ninth day of
June, 1791, Gov. Mifflin offered a reward of two hundred dollars
for the arrest of the guilty parties. Col. Arthur Erwin left
several children among them was William Erwin who in the
early part of the present century, took quite an active part in the
politics of the day, and represented Bucks county in the legisla-
ture; he was always cl violent opponent to the Democratic party.
His lands adjoin those of Thomas G. Kennedy,^ who was at one
time sheriff of Bucks county. Henry Stover is now the owner
of the Kennedy farm.
NETTING PIGEONS IN BEDMINSTER IN THE OLDEN TIMES. "
From 1784 to 1824, wild pigeons were caught in large quan-
tities in nets by numerous parties. Among the experts, in those
sports, and who excelled in that line, were Abraham Kulp,
Jacob Wismer, Jacob Angeny and Abraham Overholt. Pigeons
generally when migrating, and particularly in those days, always
traveled in large flocks. The customary cabin in which the
operators were concealed, was generally erected in buckwheat
fields, and constructed of cedar bushes, so as to completely con-
ceal the trapper from observation. When the flock of pigeons
was about to pass over the cabin the flyer-pigeon was thrown
upward, attached to a line about fifty yards long which was con-
nected to the trapper in the cabin. In performing this exploit
it was done for the purpose of attracting the attention of the
passing flock, then the operator played the stool-pigeon, in order
to attract the attention of the ground. The trapper stood upon
a small platform and operated from within by a string. The
stool-pigeon was blinded by sewing together, with white silk,
the eyelids. When the pigeons were attracted to the spot de-
sired, the net was sprung over them when all within the range of
the net were made prisoners. Jacob Wismer frequently caught,
before breakfast, as many pigeons as would fill two or three bar-
rels. Many parties salted the pigeons down for future use, all
7 Thomas G. Kennedy was a son-in-law of William Erwin.
8 See paper on "The Last of the Wild Pigeons," by Col. Paxson, Vol. IV,
p. 367.
EARLY HISTORY OF BEDAriXSTER TOWNSHIP 271
were treated that way except those that were sold in the markets,
the price being at the rate of twenty-five cents per dozen.
PEACHES IN BEDMINSTER.
Peaches and other fruits were cultivated in great abundance in
Bedmister township from 1811 to 1825. The crops were the
most prohfic during the years 1817-18-19 and 20. Abraham High
Hving one mile northwest from Keichlein's inn during those years
took a number of wagon loads of peaches to Jacob Stover's dis-
tillery, where they were made into peach brandy. Joseph Town-
send, Nicholas Garis, Jacob Laux and Jacob Krout had more
peaches than they could consume or give away, besides Jacob
Krout made a large quantity of peach brandy, which he sold as
low as twelve cents a quart. Pears and cherries were exceedingly
abundant in those days.
ANECDOTE.
Gen. Thomas Cadwallader was a noble specimen of manhood.
During his sojourn at Jacob Kichlein's inn. in 1828. in company
with Sebastian Logan, enjoying their favorite amusements, gun-
ning, etc., one morning having had occasion to pass over one of
Tinsman's fields after a covey of partridges, and when about in
the center of the field, they discovered a large and furious black
bull running toward them and bellowing at a fearful rate ; all
retreat being cut ofif, there was no other alternative, but to stand
their ground ; as the bull approached within convenient distance.
Gen. Cadwallader fired the contents of his double-barrel shot
gun into his head and face. Shaking his head, the bull beat a
hasty retreat, minus an eye. This little freak cost the general
ten dollars. The general was what might be called a "crack
shot", he seldom missed his mark, although he was troubled with
a ball in his arm near his wrist, received in a duel with Mr.
Randolph.
The following items are copied from newspaper clippings at-
tached to the notes of William H. Keichlein. which he sent to
Gen. W. W. H. Davis. March 19, 1875 :
RELICS OF 1776.
Among other curiosities of literature, we have had placed in our
272 EARLY HISTORY OF BEDMINSTER TOWNSHIP
hands several documents, so carefully preserved that it is remarkable,
and we certainly deem them worthy of preservation, particularly the
funeral-sermon and the certificate of naturalization. They are per-
taining to the history of the ancestors of our esteemed friend. Col.
William H. Keichlein, one of the inspectors of the Philadelphia county
prison; and of his brother, Dr. Charles P. Keichlein. The documents
are certainly relics of our colonial history, the Revolution and the War
of 1776. It appears that the great-great-grandfather of the Keich-
leins, John Peter Keichlein, emigrated to this country from Germany,
as far back as 1742, and settled in Eastern Pennsylvania as a good and
substantial agriculturist. He was blessed with three sons, who were
born amid contentment and happiness, their parents never anticipat-
ing an event so striking as that which occurred a few years later, when
a voice from Virginia called them to the field. The young men en-
tered the continental army, where they shortly rose to distinction and
honor. Peter was made a colonel. Andrew was promoted to major on
the battle field of Monmouth, and placed upon the staflf of General
Mercer; while Charles, the youngest, was made a lieutenant, he having
entered the army at a later period. This is one of the most remarkable
instances on record in those days, wherein three officers were from the
same family. But to the documents, which speak for themselves.
(The above from a Sunday morning paper, the name of which is
not legible.)
Spring Mills Farm, Pa.
To. Col. Peter Kichlein, July 17, 1777.
Sir:
I have the pleasure of dating this from my own house, where
I arrived last week in tolerable health, and where I hope to remain
for some time. The following is the state of your account with me at
New York. The balance I expect you will remit me the first oppor-
tunity, in silver or gold.
I am your very humble servant,
Sam'l Miles.
COL. PETER KEICHLEIN
TO SAM'L MILES DR.
To 8 Linen Shirts for your officers, at 1 /i sterling, is
12/10 New York currency
Cash on board the scow Mentor
1 Uniform coat
Expense on board the Mentor, your share
Cash paid Mrs. Carrow, your board
Cash paid Mrs. Alyre, in Jersey money
Charged by Mr. Chanter
Your share of expenses at Mrs. Carrows
£ 5
3
3
4
3
10
5
9
9
4
14
3
1
4
16
1
2
1
£28
19
1
EARLY HISTORY OF BEDMINSTER TOWNSHIP 273
CR.
By cash at Mrs. Carrows £ 6 10 4
do do do 3 4 ■ 9 14 4
The balance in New York currency is £19 4 9
which is £19-0-9 Pennsylvania.
Note in pencil by William H. Keichlein — Col. Keichlein received this
letter while on board ship "Mentor", after the Battle of Gowanis,
Long Island.
FUNERAL DISCOURSE AT THE GRAVE OF COLONEL MILES.
The following is a copy of a Discourse delivered at the grave
of Colonel Miles, the bosom friend of Colonel Peter Keichlein.
The manuscript is in excellent state of preservation, the paper
upon which it is written being scarcely soiled. It was evidently
written by the Reverend gentleman who delivered it. or by a
friend. It is a most beautiful tribute to the lamented dead, and
is worthy of perusal.
On Tuesday morning, Dec. 31, 1805, were deposited in a vault in the
graveyard of the First Baptist church, Philadelphia, the remains of Col.
Samuel Miles, of Cheltenham, who departed this life the 29th. instant,
aged 67 years.
The deserved character of this excellent man is drawn by the Rev.
Dr. Rogers, who delivered an address at his grave, in substance as
follows :
Under an impression of the truth and importance of these principles,
(referring to the great principles of the Christian system), lived and
died our dear friend, our beloved brother. They were regarded by him
not merely as subjects of speculation, but designed to sanctify the heart,
and direct the life and conversation. In all the relationship of society,
their effect was visible. As a citizen he was respected and beloved.
Not only might I call upon the immediate circle of his acquaintance,
but the inhabitants of this city and commonwealth to look into yonder
vault, and there see the mortal part of one whose heart was bent on
their prosperity. As a soldier he not only distinguished himself in the
important Revolution which broke our chains and established our tri-
umphing independence, but before the Revolution in the field of con-
test, he was known to be an officer never tardy in the service of his
country. His military character, till he laid down the sword, was pre-
served without a blot. As a Representative of this State, he discharged,
it is believed, his official duties in such a way as must awaken in the
bosom of all his constituents, who regret at the recital of his loss. The
duties of a husband he fulfilled with fidelity and affection, until death
tore his estimable wife from his embraces. As a father he was indul-
gent, and as a sincere friend. But the character in which he pre-emi-
274 EARLY HISTORY OF BEDMINSTER TOWNSHIP
nently shone, and to which these were but appendages, was that of a
Christian. "A Christian is the highest style of man". Often have I
heard hiiri relate the story of his pious experience, and as often declare
his entire confidence in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. His pil-
grimage is now closed. His spirit, we believe, is now with the spirits
of the just, and with holy angels in glory; and the hour is coming
when Jesus, who is the "resurrection and the life", shall raise in power
the dust we are now sowing in weakness. Ohl that in prospect of the
hour of death, and of the day of judgment, we may now seek the for-
giveness of our sins, the sanctification of our hearts, and all that
grace which can render our lives useful and our deaths happy.
CHARLES KEICHLEIN TAKES THE ''tEST OATH."
I do hereby certify, that CHARLES KEICHLEIN, of Bucks
county, hath voluntarily taken and subscribed the Oath of Al-
legiance and Fidelity as directed by an act of the General Assem-
bly, passed the 13th. day of June, A. D. 1777.
Witness my hand and seal, the 14th. day of October, A. D. 1777.
Thomas Dyer.
No. 101
To Richard Backhouse,
Durham Furnace, Bucks County,
Sir:
Mr. McNeal informs me of a matter concerning the said Mc-
Neal's son, who has enlisted as a volunteer from this State, with Cap-
tain Shoop, of Nockamixon, and that he has since been arrested by you
for some labor that he had to do, and that he is confined on that ac-
count. Therefore, I send you these few lines, giving my advice to
settle the matter with the man, and not to detain him from the service
in which he entered and enlisted; and that I hope you are a good friend
of the cause, that you will exchange the man from his confinement, as
Mr. McNeal tells me he is willing to allow any thing in reason for dam-
age done by him.
Sir, I am, with all respects, your most obedient and humble servant,
Andrew Keichlein.
Biographical Notice of John A. Ruth,
BY B. F. FACKENTHAL, JR., SC.D., RIEGELSVILLE, PA.
(Tohickon Park Meeting, October 9, 1920.)
OUR president, Dr. Mercer, has asked me to prepare a bi-
graphical notice of Mr. Ruth, saying that he appreciated
the careful and painstaking work that he had accompHshed
as a local historian, archaeologist and botanist, and moreover
he and his brother, Harvey F. Ruth, had very generously given
their archaeological collection to the museum of the Bucks County
Historical Society. I am indeed glad to comply with his request.
In preparing this paper I have drawn largely from a manu-
script copy of his autobiography, which he says he prepared for
his children, a copy of which has fallen into my hands. This en-
tire autobiography is well worth reading before this society ; it so
simply and graphically tells the story of his life, as to make it a
classic. He was of a religious turn of mind, a faithful church and
Sunday school worker. He was first a member of the Reformed
Church, and later after his marriage, of the Lutheran Church,
of which his wife was a member. He was a Christian gentleman
without cant or hypocracy, modest and retiring in his disposition.
The introductory page of his autobiography is headed with
these lines :
"And thou shall remember all the way which the Lord thy God
led thee."
John A. Ruth was born in Durham Township. Bucks County,
Pa., October 8, 1859. The son of Charles Ruth (B. Oct. 11, 1830,
d. March 10, 1899), and his wife MatHda (B. Dec. 1, 1830, d.
Dec. 31, 1906), daughter of Peter and Elizabeth (Long) Facken-
thal. On September 1, 1890, he married Kate S., daughter of
John and Julia (Trauger) Nicholas.
In 1861 he moved with his parents to Springfield Township
where they lived until 1872. when they moved back to Durham
Township.
His autobiography enters into detail concerning his childhood
days at Springtown. He gives his impressions of matters and
things and the people he came in contact with. He describes
the old tannery and the two tanners who operated it. within his
276 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF JOHN A. RUTH.
recollection, Mr. Gerlack and Mr. Kramer. He also tells of the
village store, the blacksmith shop, the hotel, village doctor, the
churches and schoolhouses, and gives considerable space to
Cook's, later Durham Creek, and discusses the uncertain origin
of its name. He also speaks of the stone arch bridge across the
creek. He tells of the schools he attended and gives his estima-
tion of the teachers and the influence they had upon his life.
His father was a blacksmith by trade, but at times turned farmer
and did other laboring work. John attended school in winters
and worked during the summers, mostly on farms.
On January 2, 1876, he entered the State Normal School at
West Chester, Pa., where he remained for six months. In the
winter of 1876-77, he attended the grammar school at Riegels-
ville. In 1877, at the age of 18 years he began his career as a
school teacher. He taught eleven terms in the public schools, and
was given a permanent certificate by Superintendent W. W.
Woodruff. In 1888 he entered the car accounting department
of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company at Bethlehem, Pa. Two
years later he built for himself and his bride a new home in
what was then W^est Bethlehem. He remained in Bethlehem for
twenty-five years, when owing to failing health, he resigned his
position with the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company and moved
to Clifton, N. J., in order to make a home for his daughter, who
was teaching in the high school of that city. He passed away at
Clifton, February 26, 1918, in the 59th. year of his age. He is
survived by his widow and his two children. Bertha Matilda
and Charles Nicholas.
While living in Durham Township he and his brother, Harvey
F. ( b. 1866, d. 1904) . took up, self taught, the study of geology and
archaeology, and later the study of botany. There had been
much speculation and discussion, including historical papers and
newspaper contributions, as to the location of the Indian village
of Pechoquelin, where the Shawnee Indians resided from 1698
to 1728. Mr. Ruth finally, and I believe correctly, located that
village-site in Durham Township, on the peninsula north side of
where Gallows Run (Indian name Pferlefakon), empties into the
Delaware River. There are evidences there of an extensive In-
dian village, and there the Ruth brothers found hundreds of speci-
mens, including many pot sherds. The discovery of the location
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF JOHN A. RUTH 277
of the site of the Indian village Pechoquelin must therefore be
credited to Mr. Ruth.
Mr. Ruth was asked by the Smithsonian Institute at Washing-
ton, to prepare a chart of Durham and vicinity to show where he
collected his many archaeological specimens. He was pleased to
comply with that request, and it was published in the Smithson-
ian report for the year 1881.
In 1897 Mr. Ruth and his brother very generously donated the
greater part of their archaeological and geological cabinet to the
Bucks County Historical Society, and it was his wish that the re-
mainder should, on his passing away, also be presented to that
society. His wish was complied with, and added to their original
gift, aggregated about 4,000 specimens. All their specimens,
both archaeological and botanical, are marked J. A. & H. F.
Ruth ; he was always very careful to give his brother equal credit.
As botanists they were close collectors, they were not content
with the ordinary flora, but were collectors of grasses and mosses,
on which they soon became authorities. In botanical text books
they are credited with new and rare plants. Dr. Thomas C.
Porter, Dr. N. L. Britton and many other noted botanists were
their correspondents. Dr. Porter often spoke to me of their
herbarium as a model of neatness in every respect, mounting and
labeling. It is now in my possession, I have however loaned it to
the Academy of Natural Science at Philadelphia, who knowing
its value asked for its loan in order to check up some of their own
plants. Not only are the Indian relics and plants labeled, but
they are accompanied by carefully prepared records and charts,
showing the exact places where the specimens were found. Among
the many new plants found by them was the white gentian found
near the Indian Jasper quarry on Rattlesnake Hill in Durham
Township. Their opinion, also that of Dr. Porter was, that it was
not native to that locality, but was doubtless carried there, in some
unknown way by migratory Indians.^
Mr. Ruth was also a splendid local historian. He contributed
several papers to our society, of which he was a member, also
quite a number of papers to other local historical societies. He
was one of the founders of the Buckwampun Historical So-
ciety in 1888, to which he and his brother contributed ten papers.
He also contributed a series of articles to the Ricgclsvillc News
1 See paper on "Our Local Flora," by John A. Ruth, in this volume, page 222.
278 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF JOHN A. RUTH
which he signed with his penname of "Antiquary." Copies of
these papers, mostly on the history of Durham and vicinity, are
in my possession, and I am promising myself the pleasure of
having them printed in book form for preservation and for distri-
bution among his friends. While at times he may have arrived
at wrong conclusions, the errors he fell into must be quite few in-
deed, and I long ago learned to place confidence in articles that
came from his pen.
Mr. Ruth was a close student, careful and honest. One won-
ders how he could accomplish so much with the limited facilities
at his command. After he moved to Bethlehem however his
notes show that he used the library of the Lehigh University. Be-
sides the historical articles, to which I have referred, he left many
loose sheets and memorandum books containing genealogical and
historical notes and copies of church records. Many of these
have already found their way into the archives of our society.
I must not forget to mention his scrap books, filled with valuable
clippings, which I have had bound in nine large volumes. These
will in due time also find a resting place in the library of the
Bucks County Historical Societ}^. A careful index or rather a
table of contents, of these scrap books, has been prepared and
bound in with the first volume.
I will close this paper by quoting from Mr. Ruth's autobiog-
raphy to show what he says about the aftermath of the Civil War:
"I was too young to recollect much in reference to the Civil War.
At its close, when I was six years old, I occasionally saw soldiers on
their way home from the army. Of such I recollect John O'Daniel,
who served in the 104th Reg. Pa. Volunteers, under Col. W. W. H.
Davis. The martial spirit of those days extended even to school boys,
for I remember seeing them play soldier. When Abraham Lincoln
was assassinated the Methodist congregation at Springtown held memo-
ial services, which my mother attended. During the years immediately
succeeding the rebellion, bands of southern negroes traveled through
our section. Just freed from the burden of slavery, many of them were
ill-fitted to make a proper use of their newly acquired freedom, and
wandered aimlessly about picking up a scanty subsistence cleaning
chimneys, begging, etc. Some of them still bore on their backs the
scars of the slave-driver's whip. These wandering bands often num-
bered as high as thirty or forty persons. They were of both sexes
and all ages. They were usually fine singers and in the evenings the
country people would assemble around their camp-fires to hear them
sing their plantation melodies."
Shad Fishing in the Delaware River.
BY HORACE M. MANX, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
Ci'ohickon Park Meeting, October 9, 1920.)
MR. WILLIAM LEWIS, an old-time fisherman, who has
been engaged in shad fishing for more than thirty-five
years, operating at several dififerent fisheries in the neigh-
borhood of New Hope in Bucks county, has furnished me with a
memorandum of the shad taken for thirty-one years from 1890
to 1920 inclusive. From 1890 to 1895 there were four, and from
1896 to 1920 five fisheries contained in his estimates. These sta-
tistics are of such value that I have tabulated them for this pub-
lication, m order that they may be preserved, as follows :
STATISTICS SHOWING NUMBER OF SHAD CAUGHT AND PRICES
OBTAINED.
(From memorandum furnished by William Lewis, New Hope.)
Season of
Caught
Shad
Season of
Caught
Shad
Season of
Caught
Shad
1890
14,000
1901
11,000
1911
14,000
1891
10,000
1902
7,500
1912
20,000
1892
7,200
1903
9,500
1913
19,000
1893
4,800
1904
8,000
1914
8,000
1894
6,400
1905
7,000
1915
1,500
1895
16,000
1906
6,500
1916
3,500
1896
40,000
1907
8,500
1917
4,500
1897
12,500
1908
7,000
1918
2,000
1898
10,000
1909
15.000
1919
1,750
1899
9,000
1910
17,500
1920
2,250
1900
10,000
Total estimated catch for 31 years 313,900
Highest
catch, 1896
. 40,000
Lowest catch, 1915 .
1,500
Average
catch over .
31
years .
. 10,126
MEMORANDUM
TO SHOW ]
PRICES RECEIVED FOR
SHAD.
Retail
in
cents
"Wholesale per hundred
1870
to 1894
40
$30 to
$35
1895
40
15 to
30
1896
30
to
40
7 to
30
1897
to 1899
40
15 to
35
1900
to 1909
40
to
50
25 to
30
280 SHAD FISHING ON THE DELAWARE RIVER
Shad caught and sold at Green Bank and Malta Fisheries.
1910 5,923 for $2,692.83 or .45 each
1912 5,749 for 2,398.65 or .42 each
1913 4,972 for 2,348.65 or .47 each
1920 773 for 1,527.50 or $1.98 each
Mr. Lewis says that the height of the industry was reached
about 1870, after which there was a marked falling off. He
attributes this to the pollution of the Delaware, which is certainly
one of the principal causes for the condition he describes, but his
statistics show such great variations from year to year, that one
must necessarily believe that the pollution of the stream is not
the only cause for less shad, e. g., a catch of 40,000 in 1896 and
of 20,000 in 1912. His table, however, shows that but very few
were taken over the last five years under review. He says he
made his largest single haul on Monday, May 4, 1896, when at
the Liberty Fishery, Lambertville (opposite New Hope), he took
355 shad; and on the following Monday, May 11, they made their
largest daily catch, taking 1,726 shad. During the week ending
April 30, 1910, while operating the Malta fishery at New Hope,
he made his largest weekly catch, viz : 3,250 shad which sold for
a total of $1,429.61, an average of about 44 cents each.
In the splendid paper by Dr. J- Ernest Scott, read before the
Bucks County Historical Society, July 21, 1908, he so fully de-
scribes this industry and the modes of taking shad, that it is only
necessary for me to refer you to that paper, published, with illus-
trations, in Vol. 3, page 543, of our transactions.
In early years shad not only went up the Delaware river, but
also entered some of the larger streams tributary thereto. There
are no records to show when shad were first taken from the Dela-
ware river, but it is quite certain that the aboriginies who in-
habited this country, long before the advent of the white man, well
knew and appreciated the value of this unsurpassed food fish, just
as the heaps of shells along the Atlantic coast testify to their large
use of our Crustacea.
As early as 1698, Gabriel Thomas, in his report to William
Penn, invites his attention to the "shads" in the waters of the
Delaware river abounding in prodiguous quantities.^
1 See "An Historical and Geographical Account of the Province and
Country of Pennsylvania and of West New Jersey in America," p. 13.
SHAD FISHING ON THE DELAWARE RIVER 281
Hazard's Register of Pennsylvania contains many notes relat-
ing to shad fishing in our Pennsylvania streams. In 1802 they
made their appearance in this market as early as February 17.
In 1828 he speaks of two shad taken at Slack's Island, five miles
above Trenton, weighing between eight and nine pounds each. In
1832 shad sold at 33 cents each. From Vol. 3, at page 214, of
the publication referred to, we learn that in 1818 the legislature
of New Jersey appointed a committee to investigate the shad
fisheries on the Delaware, having under consideration the passing
of a law to restrict shad fishing. There were then seventy fish-
eries on both sides of the river below Trenton Falls, employing
1,336 men, whose wages for the short season were $80,160. with
apparatus costing $82,800. and in 1829 there were forty fisheries
within the limits of Gloucester county. N. J., on the Delaware,
which employed 900 men with wages for the season amounting
to $20,000.
An old account book of Martin Mull, who owned a shad fish-
ery at Penn's Point, nearly opposite Bordentown, containing
entries for the year 1844, records that the first catch that season
was on April 1, that during that month the catch was 995 shad.
One haul containing 87 shad sold for $12.18. During May of
that year they caught over 1,000. One entry records the sale of
258 shad for $41.38.
Many attempts have been made to place dams in the Dalaware
river, but the shad fishing industry has heretofore been of such
importance, that no legislature dare to antagonize it and authorize
dams. There was considerable opposition to the construction of
the low rip-rap stone dam near Point Pleasant, used to divert
water into the feeder of the Raritan canal, and much lobbying and
intriguing to raise the dam of the Trenton Water Power Com-
pany at Scudder's Falls, but the opposition of the shad fishing in-
dustry prevented it, in fact they objected to having the stones
put back on the parapet, which had been washed off by the floods.
The congress of the United States, through its deep water-
way commission, is now discussing the question of a deeper
water-way in the Delaware river, to include slack water naviga-
tion. This would necessitate the building of dams, and public
sentiment has undergone so much change that one hears but very
little objection to their plans. Several companies have purchased
282 GROWING, TREATING AND DRYING FLAX.
riparian rights with the view of building dams in the Delaware
river. Xow that the shad industry has practically passed, and
seems of less importance than formerly, such dams are likely to
be built in the near future, and the waters harnessed to turn the
wheels of manufacturing industries, and that would in all prob-
ability forever destroy the few shad fisheries that are left on the
Delaware above tide. Since the advent of electricity, our inland
streams, such as the Delaware river, are of the greatest value,
and will become even more so as the mining of coal becomes
more costly, or the mines become more or less exhausted. The
fall in the Delaware river from Easton to Trenton Falls, according
to a survey contained in Hazard's Register (Vol. I, page 57), in a
distance of 49 miles is 160 feet 5 inches, and the fall above Easton
is even greater, one falls alone, that at Foul Rift below Belvidere
is 22 feet.
Grow^ing, Treating and Drying Flax.
BY ELIJAH R. CASE, C.E., M.S., FRENCHTOWN, N. J.
(Tohickon Park Meeting-, October 9, 1920.)
THE following information was given to Dr. Mercer by Mr.
Case at the Tohickon Park meeting, following the reading
and discussion of the paper on "Wool Combing by Hand",
presented by Mr. Montague.
When I was a lad of from fourteen to sixteen years old (1862
to 1864), attending school in Alexandria township, Hunterdon
county, N. J., I passed by the farm of Samuel S. Shuster and
took notice of the operations of cultivating flax and its subsequent
treatment, to prepare it for spinning. In fact I helped to pull
flax on that farm, which was later acquired by me. The flax
was pulled before it was dead ripe, as flax in that condition was
softer on the hands. The pullers tied it together in small
"hands" or bunches which they shocked in about the same man-
ner that wheat is shocked. About twelve bunches formed one
shock. They were placed on ends, which enabled the seed, exposed
to the sun to ripen. When thoroughly dried it was taken to the
barn where it was forcibly struck on a large rough stone or plank
GROWING, TREATING AND DRYING FLAX
283
set at an angle of about thirty degrees, when nearly all the bolls
and seed came otT. Most of the farmers then ran the bolls through
clover hullers, but some of them threshed their flax stalks with
mallets and stampers to recover the seed. The seed was then
ground and the linseed or flaxseed oil recovered, and the "cake
meal", used for feeding cattle. This was done at the local old mill.
On the Shuster farm referred to, there was an oven for dry-
ing or roasting flax after dew retting and before breaking. This
Remains of stone-built part of flax oven on farm of Elijah R. Case.
oven consisted of a horizontal flue built on an upward incline
against the side of a bank. This flue about fifteen or more feet
long and about eighteen inches wide by twelve inches high, con-
sisted of two parallel loose stone walls roofed over with flat
stones made tight by covering it with earth. The upper or farther
end of the flue entered a wooden box or frame about six feet
long, with a rectangular opening about two and one-half feet by
four feet on the inside. On the inner rim of this flue, about
eight inches below the top, several staves or poles were laid, on
which the flax, after having been dew retted, was placed for
284 WOOL COMBING BY HAND
roasting or dr^'ing. The smoke and heat, minus the sparks, of a
mild wood fire built at the lower end of the stone oven, passed up
through the latter into the box under the flax and so dried it.
It required but fifteen minutes to dry each lot placed in the
dryer. It was removed from the box as fast as dried and im-
mediately broken on the flax brake standing near by, fresh flax
was then placed in the box, thus making the operation continu-
ous. The stone part of this old drying kiln remains.
Wool Combing By Hand
BY WILLIAM B. MONTAGUE, NORRISTOWN, PA.
(Tohickon Park Meeting, October 9, 1920.)
THE rearing of sheep dates back to the earliest times, and
we find many passages in the Bible, which refer to sheep,
wool and woolen garments, but nowhere do we find much
information as to how and when man first made wool useful to
himself.
There is no doubt that the use of wool and particularly the
method of manipulating it, passed in succeeding steps through
the hands of the Egyptians, Greeks and the Romans, and thence
to England, and it is from the English who immigrated to
America that we are able to learn of the primitive methods
used in our own country prior to the introduction of machinery
for combing. There was, no doubt, much hand carding done in
the early days in the preparation of wool for woolen fabrics
and also hand combing done by the individual families who
scoured, combed and spun their own wool by hand and either
wove or had woven for them, the cloth for their own domestic
use, but the first hand combed worsted yarn made commercially
in this part of our country, I believe was made by Moses Hay
who was born in Keighley, England, in 1792, and came to
America in 1816. After a few years spent in endeavoring to
perfect some machinery, he established a small worsted plant in
Dedham, Mass., which proved to be unsuccessful, and in 1822,
WOOL COMBING BY HAND 285
he started for himself, a little plant in Manayunk, Pa., and this
is, no doubt, the start of the manufacture of commercial hand
combed worsted yarn in this locality. Meeting with success,
Mr. Hay established a larger plant on Darby creek, the place
then being known as "Hay bank", Springfield township, Dela-
ware county, Pa. Among his hand combers was one Richard
Dawson, who came to America in 1844, and from whose brother,
William Dawson, now living, aged 89, we learn of Richard's
combing wool to be used for epaulettes on the officer's uniforms
w^orn in the Mexican War.
Mr. Samuel Yewdell came from England in 1844 and worked
for Mr. Hay at his Hay Bank mill, and early in 1846 he started
in business for himself in Philadelphia, in a district called
Blockley, now 54th and Poplar streets, and in 1847 his brother,
John Yewdell, came to America to work for Samuel, and in
1860 he started in business for himself in the Keystone mill at
25th and Hamilton streets. The old mill was lately razed to
make room for the Parkway.
Another of the early hand-combers was John Dawson, father
of Richard, who came here in 1853 to work for Samuel Yewdell.
Mr. John Yewdell is the man who, with the introduction of
machinery, saw the extermination of the wool-comber's art, and
desiring that the memory and traditions be preserved, had this
set of pictures prepared, showing the complete process from mak-
ing the soap to the finished top. These pictures are now the
property of this society, and we are deeply indebted for them to
Mr. George Fiss, a pioneer in the wool business, and from whose
personal note book, we received much of our information. Mr.
Fiss was early identified with the worsted business and his per-
sonal notations on the same are among his greatest treasures.
The wool, which you see here in its original condition, was
first sorted and graded into various lengths and finenesses, keep-
ing in mind all the while, the various numbers of yarn, into which
it might ultimately be spun. This work was done by wool sorters,
who served long apprenticeship before being finally adjudged
competent. William Dawson, referred to above, who was the
son of John and the brother of Richard, remembers very dis-
tinctly serving seven years as an apprentice. After proper sort-
ting, this wool was weighed out to the combers in the district.
286 WOOL COMBING BY HAND
who were also supplied with the soap for scouring, the charcoal
for the comber's pot and the oil. The mill also supplied the
combs as various pitches of combs were necessary for the various
finenesses of wool.
We learn from Mr. Benjamin Smith, an old comber, now 86
years of age, living in Tacony, that these combers came from as
great a distance as eight or ten miles, and used a donkey and
cart as a means of transportation.
The combs given out varied from those with two rows of
teeth or "broches" for coarse wool, to those with six rows of
"broches" for the finest. The comber first scoured the wool in
a large iron bowl, thirty-six or forty inches in diameter, using
the soap, supplied by the mill, and sopping the wool up and down
in the warm suds with his hands or a stick until the yellow gummy
like substance, which was the natural oil from the sheep and
which was called "yolk", as well as the dirt, was thoroughly dis-
solved and washed out. It was wrung out in a very simple but
unique method. Handful after handful was twisted together
into sort of an endless rope, and one loop thrown over a station-
ary hook fastened in the wall, while the other loop was thrown
over a hook fastened in the end of a wooden roller suspended
above the bowl. The wooden roller was then turned round and
round by means of a lever on the end and a twist put into the
woolen rope, which left little room for water. This operation
was very similar to a woman wringing the water out of clothes
by hand. It was then straightened out into little piles on a bench
along side of the comber, either by the children of the house-
hold or by boys hired for the purpose or apprenticed to the
comber. This process was called "making up" and during the
process of making up, the wool was lightly sprinkled with olive
oil, or as it was then called "Oil of Seville". Here is where
the comber's art really started. Taking up the small piles of wool,
prepared by the children, he lashed them unto his comb, which
previously fastened to a post with the broches or teeth end of the
comb towards himself. He used an overhand motion, much after
the manner of hackling flax or using the flail. After filling both
combs to his satisfaction, the broches were thrust into the comb-
er's pot for warming, the wool working much better when warm
than when cold. These comber's pots varied in construction.
WOOL COMBING BY HAND 287
The earliest one, as far as we can learn, was made of common
native clay about three to four inches thick and about two feet in
diameter. It was thirty-six to forty inches in height and had a
hole in the top. for which in some instances, there was an iron
cover, and at other times a clay cover, made of the same ma-
terial of which the pot was made. The pot for burning char-
coal, we are told, had a bottom and no draft whatever was ad-
mitted there. It was the practice to put in six or eight inches of
charcoal in the bottom and carry hot coals from the fireplace,
with which to light the charcoal. This load would last for half
a day, sufficient air to support combustion being admitted to
rough the comb holes and by the occasional lifting of the lid.
The pot for burning coal was similar in construction, with but
three exceptions. First, it had no bottom. Secondly, six or eight
inches from its base, it had an iron grate, on which they burned
a semi- bituminous coal, and thirdly, it had a hole in the side,
near the top, to which was attached a stove pipe. The coal
burned with more or less gas or smoke, while the charcoal was
practically free from both. This latter pot was set up on stones
or dirt and admitted air to support combustion at the bottom.
This difference in pots, was, no doubt, due to local conditions, the
coal pot being used nearer the mining districts and the charcoal
pot where coal was not so accessible. Both pots had similar
comb holes. These were placed horizontally in the sides of the
pot about two and one-half inches from the top, and were about
two and one-half by five inches and varied in number from four
to eight, each comber using two holes. Pots were made for
two, three or four combers.
After proper heating of the combs loaded with wool, they
were withdrawn from the pot, one rehung on the post and with
the other, the comber proceeded to comb out the long fibres from
comb to comb, alternating his combs on the post until gradually
all the short fibres or noils were worked to the base of the
broches. This first combing process, with the coarser combs was
called jugging.
The wool was then pulled from the combs by hand by the
comber into a "sliver", care being used to keep this sliver as
near to a size as possible. These slivers were rolled up into
balls called "heads" and when sufficient wool had been given
288 WOOL COMBING BY HAND
this first combing or jigging process, the heads were gathered to-
gether for back-washing or re-scouring. After re-scouring in ex-
actly the same manner as in the first instance, the wool was re-
combed with finer combs, this time there being very much less of
the noils to be taken out. The wool was now very soft and lofty
and in pulling this sliver, much more care was used in keeping it
into an even thickness, usually a ring of bone being used as a
measure through which the sliver was pulled. In the subsequent
operation of "doubling" and drawing, the sliver was gradually
reduced in size until you had a roving, which when given the
proper number of twists or turns on the spinning frame produced
a yard of the weight and thickness desired.
Various attempts were made to produce a machine to shorten
this slow method of hand combing and as early as 1790, we
had a machine comb made by Arkright in England, but which
proved not to be very successful. We next had the Eastman
comb, but it was not until 1849 or 1850 that the Lester comb
revolutionized this art. Almost human in its action, with but
one fault. It combed long wools admirably, but on short wools,
which were the native wools of the south of England, there was
room for improvement. Within two years of this time, the
Noble comb was invented and the wool combing problem was
solved, and the combing of wool by hand was destined to become
a lost art in England and America. The Noble comb of today
will comb from five hundred to eight hundred pounds daily, de-
pending on the fineness and the length of staple of the wool
being combed. One operator, usually a woman, minds two combs.
In England, the hand comber was paid for his work from two
pence a pound (four cents) to four pence "but". Four pence
"but" meaning that he did not get quite eight cents for his work,
as he would have liked, but did in reality receive three pence
and three farthings or seven and one-half cents per pound. Dur-
ing all this experimental machine stage, the slogan of the hand
comber was "They will never be able to do by machine what we
now do by hand". How mistaken they were !
Probably the first power comb imported into this country was
a Lester, brought here by the Pacific Mills of Lawrence, Mass.,
in 1853.
For the information we have today on this lost art, we are
WOOL COMBING BY HAND
289
greatly indebted to Mr. John Yewdell for his forethought in hav-
ing these pictures prepared and to the following gentlemen, who
are yet living: Mr. George W. Fiss, an old time wool merchant,
who in after years established the business that is now the Er-
ben, Harding Co., of Tacony; Mr. William Dawson, aged 89, a
wool sorted, whose father and brother were both combers in Eng-
land and America; Mr. Benjamin Smith, aged 86, who also fol-
lowed this trade here and at home, and Mr. Robert Sunderland,
aged 65, a machinist by trade, whose father and grandfather were
both combers in Bradford, England.
Octagonal or So-Called "Eight-Square" Schoolhouses.
BY WARREN S. ELY, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Tohickon Park Meeting, October 9, 1920.)
THERE is probably no subject of more interest to the local
historian than the problem and progress of public education
in Pennsylvania.
William Penn very evidently intended that public schools for
the education of children should be established in his colony and
supported from a common fund. But from the fact that jeal-
ousies arose between the different sects represented in the first
settlement of Bucks county, each sect preferring to educate its
own youth, the only schools established for the first three-quar-
ters of a century were in connection with the churches or meet-
ings for religious worship.
About the middle of the eighteenth century a number of school-
houses were erected in our county on the plan of subscriptions, by
families residing in the neighborhood where the schools were
located, the funds to pay for them and their sites being raised by
popular subscriptions, the titles in each instance being held by
three or five trustees selected by the proprietors, as the subscrib-
ers were generally called. Teachers were employed by the trus-
tees or an auxiliary committee and were paid, usually, pro-rata
for the number of scholars taught. Some few were established
as early as 1735-40, but they did not become numerous or popular
in our county until about 1760. The first schoolhouses were con-
structed of logs, or of frame or stone, the matter of material
being governed by their location and the amount of money that
could be collected for their construction.
The same condition prevailed in adjoining counties and states.
In Hunterdon county, New Jersey, the first houses were almost
invariably built of logs, and almost as universally succeeded in
the first half of the nineteenth century by stone octagonal school-
houses. In our own county the octagonal schoolhovise does not
appear until the nineteenth century, and the same is true of the
adjoining counties of Pennsylvania, the state of Delaware, and
the lower river counties of New Jersey. The period during which
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OCTAGU.\'A_L
LiioLSii;, BUILT ABOUT 1835.
Jirmingham Township, Delaware County, Pa.
Now used as a Catholic Mission Chapel.
OLD EIGHT-SQUARE SCHOOLHOUSE.
Wrightstown Township, Bucks County, Pa.
OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "eIGIIT SQUARE" SCHOOLHOUSES 291
these peculiarly shaped schoolhouses were built lies between
1800 and 1840, very few being built anywhere, that we can learn
of, earlier than 1800, and none after 1850.
The main question we propose to discuss in this paper is the
origin of this peculiar building, why it was selected for the use
of schools. Certain it is that it was universally popular for the
particular period above referred to, and seems to belong to this
particular section although we have some account of their being
erected at far distant points from Bucks county. In these cases,
however, there is a strong supposition that the style of building
was introduced in these distant sections by emigrants from Bucks
county or its immediate neighborhood.
In connection with Dr. Mercer we have had investigations
made in reference to the existence of the eight-square buildings in
several states. We succeeded in finding one near Syracuse, N.
Y., an account of which and other buildings of the same type in
that locality will be given later in this paper.
J. F. Hudson, of Smyrna, Delaware, a recent visitor to our
museum, told us of an eight-square schoolhouse located near the
center of the state of Delaware, twelve miles south of Wilming-
ton. Mr. Hudson was born within eight miles of that school-
house, but never attended school there. He, however, was fa-
miliar with its construction and insists that it was the only one
in that section, and he thinks the only one in that state. It was
practically of the same type as to size and form as those we are
familiar with near home, but was built of wood, having a window
on each of its eight sides excepting the one which contained the
door. The apex of the roof was surmounted by a brick chimney
resting on the joists at the square.
Our first impression was that this form of building originated
with the Quakers. This theory was in a measure supported by
the fact that the first meeting-house of the Society of Friends at
Burlington, N. J., erected in 1682, was hexagon in shape. Our
friend, Thaddeus S. Kenderdine, of Newtown, visited Burling-
ton several years ago and has this to say about the Burlington
Meeting and Meeting-house :
" 'Set up' in 1671, this was one of the oldest meeting places for
Friends on the continuent, preceding Philadelphia. There, in 1682, was
built the 'Great Meetinghouse,' private houses being previously used for
worship. This was a 'six square building 48 feet out to out.' Of this
292
OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED EIGHT SQUARE SCHOOLHOUSES
I have a picture, and I doubt if there was ever such another Friends'
meetinghouse built. A hexagon in ground plan, there were large double
doors next the street and two windows piercing each of the other sides.
Up the roof, twenty feet from the ground, sat what gave the building
the appearance of one of those 'steeple houses' which so* troubled the
minds of early Friends. This was a sort of cupola, which rose six feet
above the roof, topped with a blunt peak, with windows in each side.
* * * The picture is copied from a lithograph which must have been
made before 1790, unless drawn from descriptions. Before 1691 courts
FRIENDS MEETING HOUSE, BURLINGTON, N. J.
1682-1787.
were held in this meetinghouse, in which year certain Friends made
objection thereto through the monthly meeting, when directions were
given that the building be confined to its special use. The semblance
of it may have justified its legal occupation by the law officials of
Burlington County. It stood just in the rear of its successor, and was
shaded by sycamores, an immense specimen of which is yet standing.
The present meetinghouse is of brick, built about 1785, in the con-
ventional style."
So far as we can learn there was no provision made for heat-
ing this ancient building, and in the absence of stoves, unknown
at that date, it could not be heated except by individual foot
stoves carried in by the devotees, as in the old churches of Hol-
land. It is a far cry from 1682 to 1802. and there is nothing to
suggest a connection of our octagon and hexagon schoolhouses of
OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "EIGHT SQUARE" SCIIOOLHOUSES 293
the nineteenth century with this seventeenth century house of
worship.
Another clue came from a man who drifted into our hbrary
and told me that the first Unitarian Church in Philadelphia was
octagon in shape, and Dr. Mercer having already suggested a
possible New England origin, at his suggestion, I wrote to Wil-
liam Summer Appleton, corresponding secretary of the Society
for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, at Boston,
Mass., who replied stating that he had never heard of an octa-
gonal schoolhouse, but that there was an octagonal church at
East Lexington, Mass., and that there was a number of octagonal
residences, but gave me no dates.
It having been suggested that the peculiar form of building
originated with the Friends, I wrote to Kirk Brown, clerk of
Baltimore Yearly Meeting, who for many years have been en-
gaged as a genealogist and historian and had traveled over the
parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and
Virginia, settled by Friends, and examined many Friends Meet-
ing records and who by virtue of his official position was the
custodian of records of widely scattered meetings of the early
days. Through these mediums he was probably one of the best
informed men of his time in reference to habits and customs of
the early Friends. Mr. Brown replied that he had never seen or
heard of the Friends erecting or occupying octagonal buildings.
As we progressed in our investigation in reference to octagonal
buildings, we have become convinced that they originated with
the Dutch.
AN OCTAGONAL DUTCH TRADING POST AT TRENTON, NEW JERSEY.
In August, 1872, George Bernard Consolloy, in excavating for
the erection of buildings at 738-744 South Warren street, Tren-
ton, N. J., unearthed the foundation walls of an octagon building
about sixty feet in diameter. The foundation walls composed of
hard gray stone were laid about two feet thick with mortar
running six feet deep. The walls had four openings, each about
three feet wide and facing to the north, east, south and west.
On the sides of the walls, facing the Delaware river, there was
built up against the same a brick wall about one foot thick and
four feet deep of hard burnt brick. On the northwest comer of
294
OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "EIGHT SQUARE" SCHOOLHOUSES
the building there was an old stone and brick chimney about six
feet wide and six feet deep from the surface of the foundation.
A few cannon balls were found in the ruins, also a quantity of
cooking utensils, having the appearance of very thick stoneware,
made in curious shapes, most of which were broken in fragments.
Several noted archaeologists and historians have discussed the
matter, among them Dr. Charles Conard Abbott, who published
an article in the Trenton Sunday Advertiser, March 18, 1906.
Dr. Charles E. Godfrey of Trenton, read a paper before the
Trenton Historical Society. March 20, 1919, which was printed
by the society in pamphlet form, and reproduced in the "Proceed-
ings of the New Jersey Historical Society," (New Series, Vol.
V, No. 4, October, 1920), discussing the probability of the
building being the remains of the Dutch Trading Post, erected
by the Dutch West India Company in 1630, and destroyed by
the Swedes in 1646. He illustrates the paper with a drawing
of the ground plan of the building and discusses its construction
and history at some length. He observes :
"The octagon construction of buildings was an exclusive character-
istic of the early Dutch. This statement cannot be successfully con-
troverted. In Holland today will be found windmills and other struc-
DUTCH TRADING POST, TRENTON, N. J.
OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "EIGHT SQUARE*' SCIIOOLIIOUSES 295
tures which were built centuries ago in the octagon and other angular
forms. In this Colony we know the Dutch built the octagon stone
church in 1680, at Bergen, now part of Jersey City. * * * The
superstructure was evidently built of logs, otherwise the upper surface
of the foundation excavated would not have been level and flush. * *
The brick wall on the outside facing the river was doubtless built to
divert the dampness and the cold northwest winds in winter from the
crude walls of the foundation, on the side of the basement in which
the traders undoubtedly lived." His illustration of the outline of the
base of the building is reproduced herewith. "The transverse walls
were built to support the great weight of skins, stores, and other ma-
terials stored on the floor above."
Victor H. Paltists. of the New York Public Library, possesses
an illustration of an original octagonal building which was
erected by the Dutch, near Utrecht, Long Island, at an early, but
unknown date.
Having determined that the octagonal constructions originated
with the Dutch does not account for the appearance of these octa-
gonal schoolhouses in our section nearly two centuries after the
Dutch creations had practically disappeared. Several historians
and others with whom we have corresponded, and whose descrip-
tions of these old eight-square schoolhouses we have read, have
suggested that the occasion for building a schoolhouse in that
form was that the scholars could be kept under the eye of the
teacher much better than in a square building, and, wath the
advent of stoves with a pipe, they could be more easily and eco-
nominally heated. We are disposed to agree wdth them and have
about despaired of finding the individual or exact community
who and which suggested and adopted the peculiar form of
building, just at the period when the six plate and ten plate stove
began to come into common use. We believe, however, that the
place where its use originated was either in or near Bucks county,
where we have found at least nine of these eight-square school-
houses ranging in date of erection from 1802 to 1833, a list of
which is given below.
We have an account of two octagonal schoolhouses in Mont-
gomery county, one at Conshohocken, and one at Plymouth
Meeting. The one at Conshohocken was still standing and used
as a schoolhouse as late as August 15, 1903, when a reunion of
teachers and pupils was held there. A rude pencil sketch of this
296
OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "EIGHT SQUARE SCHOOLHOUSES
schoolhouse shows a sort of storm door or vestibule in front but
otherwise conforms to the usual type.
Col. Henry D. Paxson, one of our vice-presidents, has sent me
elaborate drawings, describing an octagonal schoolhouse at New-
ton Square, Chester county, Pa., prepared by his cousin, Edward
S. Paxson, an architect of W^est Chester, copies of which are
shown below.
OCTAGONAL SCHOOLHOUSE AT NEWTON SQUARE,
CHESTER COUNTY, PA.
Note that all the desks are arranged with the pupils facing the center of
the room.
OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED EIGHT SQUARE SCHOOLIIOUSES
297
F. H. Shelton has sent me cuts of two octagonal schoolhouses
in Delaware county, one in Newton township, built about 1841.
now used as a small barn or wagon house, the other in Burming-
ham township, built 1835 to 1840, now used as a Catholic Mission
i. 4
Cu-TWe ot W.nAov
OCTAGONAL SCHOOLHOUSE AT NEWTON SQUARE
Outside leng-th of each side approximately 12 feet, inside 11 feet, walls
1 foot thick. Height of walls inside 10 feet, width inside 25 feet 10 inches.
W, 7 windows. D, door. B-B, blackboards.
Chapel. He also reports having seen an eight-square school-
house, which he passed while on a summer outing — "A wooden
one, 13 miles southeast of Syracuse. N. Y., on the road to
Ithaca." I therefore wrote to \V. AI. Beauchamp at Syracuse,
his reply dated September 23, 1920. says:
298 OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "EIGHT SQUARE" SCIIOOLIIOUSES
"Octagonal schoolhouses are rare here, and are not of early
date. About 70 years ago there came a slight craze for that
style of building, and a very few dwelling houses of that shape
were erected. Two brick schoolhouses were also built. I can-
not however give the precise years, but it was not far from 1850.
Both were in rural districts. One, No. 4 of Otisco. is about a
mile south of Otisco village, the other No. 17 of Skaneateles. is
about the same distance south of that village, I can think of no
others. Village schoolhouses were usually of brick. Rural ones
of wood, brick or stone, often of the latter * * * * j ^yju
enclose a sketch of the first schoolhouse in Syracuse, said to
have been built in 1819, or probably a little later. This style of
roof was frequently used in dwelling houses. 1830-40. Pennsyl-
vania people were rarely pioneers here."
The sketch of the first schoolhouse in Syracuse. 1819, referred
to by Mr. Beauchamp, is that of a square building, with peaked
room, a chimney crowning apex.
OCTAGONAL SCHOOLHOUSES IN NORTHAMPTON COUNTY, PA.
Of the octagonal schoolhouses in Northampton county we
have record of but two. One of them described by John R.
Laubach of Nazareth in the Pennsylvania-German Maga:;ine for
November, 1907, Vol. VIII. page 513, which stood on the Bath
road in Upper Nazareth township. This has been so fully re-
ferred to by Alden M. Collins in his paper read before this so-
ciety that it is only necessary to draw attention to that valuable
contribution to this subject, see page 251 ante. The other one
was located in the village of Lower Saucon. in Lower Saucon
township, on the south side of the road leading from Hellertown
to Riegelsville. After it was abandoned for school purposes it
was for years used as a chicken house. I am told by Dr. B. F.
Fackenthal, Jr., that his grandmother, Fackenthal, nee Illick and
Mrs. Fackenthal's grandmother, Riegel, nee Leidy, attended
school together in that old house. We are fortunate in being
able to present an etching of this old building from a photograph
taken in 1902.
OCTAGONAL SCHOOLHOUSES IN BERKS COUNTY.
The Pennsylvania-German, for November, 1907. already re-
ferred to, also contains an interesting article on an octagonal
OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "EIGHT SQUARE" SCHOOLHOUSES 299
schoolhouse in Berks county, written by the then county school
superintendent, E. M. Rapp of Hamburg, Pa. This is also re-
ferred to by Mr. Collins, but the description given by Mr. Rapp
is so interesting that it has been thought best to quote more fully
from it. It was still standing in 1907 when the article was
published. Its location was at the eastern end of the village of
Sinking Spring, near a recently abandoned tollgate on the Har-
risburg pike, and is said to be the only building of its kind in
that county. It was abandoned as a schoolhouse over fifty
years ago, and then used as a dwelling house. The author says
the outside is the same as when constructed, except for a porch
in front, an addition on the east and a dormer window. The
inside still contains the umbrella-like rafters. The author fails
to give the date of its erection, but gives the impression that it
was built immediately after the Revolutionary War. His state-
ment on this subject follows:
"The immediate predecessor of the octagonal schoolhouse in country
districts during the Colonial times was the log schoolhouse with a
rough puncheon floor or a dirt floor. During and immediately after the
Revolutionary War the rough log cabin was replaced, in the Aliddle
States, by a better schoolhouse of the octagonal shape, so much in
favor for meetinghouses as well as for school purposes. In Eastern
Pennsylvania these octagonal schoolhouses were nearly always built of
stone, like the one we have just described. The interior furnishings of
this schoolhouse were very meager. Against the walls all around the
room was built a continuous sloping shelf, about three feet from the
floor, serving the purpose of a desk. Long backless benches accom-
panied it, on which the older pupils sat facing the wall. While they
were studying they leaned against the edge of the shelf, and when
they wrote or ciphered they rested their exercise-books and slates on it.
Under it, on a horizontal shelf, that was somewhat narrower than the
upper one, the pupils kept their books and other school belongings
when not in use. A table was placed in the middle or near the middle
of the room, with lower benches on each side of it for the smaller chil-
dren. The number of children the schoolhouse would hold depended on
how closely they could be packed on the benches. The enrollment in
mid-winter numbered between seventy and eighty. The children in the
old-time families were more numerous than now; "race-suicide" was
unknown and the farm regions had not yet begun to be depopulated by
the cityward migration destined to drain them later. But no matter
how many pupils, there was never any thought of providing more than
a single teacher.
The master's desk was placed at the north end of the building, op-
posite the entrance, but inside the circle of shelving which served as a
300 OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "eIGHT SQUARE" SCHOOLHOUSES
continuous desk. Besides serving the ordinary purposes of a desk, it
was repository for confiscated tops, balls, pen-knives, marbles, jew's-
harps and the like, and was frequently a perfect curiosity shop. All
seats and desks were of pine or oak, rudely fashioned by some local
carpenter. Their aspect was not improved by the passing years; the
unpainted wood became more browned with the number of human con-
tacts and every possessor of a pen-knife labored over them with much
idle hacking and carving. This old-time schoolhouse must have been
somewhat up-to-date, as a wooden blackboard four feet square was
hung against the wall opposite the entrance: but in order to use it the
children were obliged to crawl with their knees on the sloping shelving
used as desks.
A cast-iron wood stove occupied the middle of the room and nearly
roasted the little ones, who occupied the seats around the table nearby.
The wood was usually furnished free of charge by the parents. It was
cut into stove lengths by the older boys. In a school of seventy or
eighty pupils there were a score of j^oung men and women practically
grown-up. The young men took turns in 'chopping' and in pleasant
weather preferred the change to the school routine. The wood was oft-
times burned green; no one thought of getting school wood ready long
enough beforehand to allow it to season. When it was delivered in the
schoolyard, it lay there exposed, and it was often wet with rain and
buried in the snow. In summer the place of the woodpile was marked
by scattered chips and refuse. Woodsheds and even other necessarj^
outbuildings were conspicuous for their absence. At times several of
the boys earned their tuition by cutting wood a certain period and at-
tending to the fire.
The tuition amounted to three cents a day and where parents were
too poor the most well-to-do often volunteered to pay the tuition of the
children of their less fortunate neighbors. The school room walls were
most dismally vacant except for weather-stains and the grime from the
fire. The school room was lighted by six small windows of twelve
panes each. The glass in the windows was often broken and in cool
weather the place of the missing panes was supplied with hats during
the school hours."
About the books and making of pens, Mr. Rapp has the fol-
lowing to say :
"For each writer the master set a copy at the top of the pupil's
copying book. The writing book was usually made of sheets of fools-
cap paper, with a brown paper cover sewed on. The writing was done
with a quill pen, and the experienced teacher always took great pride
in his ability to make and mend pens."
His description of the process of making pens is so full and
clear that we copy it in full :
"Richard B. Krick is still quite a genius in making a pen and showed
the writer minutely how to make one. A sharp pen-knife is needed.
OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "EIGHT SQUARE" SCHOOLHOUSES 301
The new quill must be scraped on the outside to remove the thin film,
a sort of cuticle which enveloped the quill proper. One dexterous stroke
cut off what was to become the under side of the pen. A single mo-
tion of the knife made the slit. Two quick strokes removed the two
upper corners, leaving the point. Then came the most delicate part of
the mechanical process. The point of the pen was placed on the thumb
nail of the left hand. The knife was deftly guided so as to cut off
the extreme end of the pen directly across the slit, leaving a smooth
end, not too blunt so as to make too large a mark, and not too fine so
as to scratch."
The author gives some account of the early teachers, the old-
time school discipline, and the mode of teaching.
A visitor to our library from Spring City, Chester county, Pa.,
where he was then teaching, stated that he was a native of Bed-
ford county. Pa., and that there was an eight-square house in
that county, still in use, that was a rare curiosity.
Just across the Delaware in Hunterdon county, N. J., we
have located ten octagonal schoolhouses, and there were probably
more. Two of these were six sided instead of eight, but had
otherwise the same style of constntction and equipment. In that
locality, as in Bucks county, they were not considered so great
a curiosity, being looked upon simply as an obsolete and an-
tiquated style of building, that had recently fallen into disuse.
Our friend and fellow member, Hiram E. Deats of Flemington,
N. J., has kindly brought us pictures of some of these New Jersey
temples of learning that will give you a clear idea of their ap-
pearance.* I personally recall seeing several of these eight-square
schoolhouses in his county forty-odd years ago.
The octagonal schoolhouses in Hunterdon county. New Jersey,
of which we have a definite record are as follows :
Union School, at Slacktown, erected 1820, near the center of what
was known as the Great Black Bear Swamp.
Mount Airy, on the York road, three miles from Lambertville,
erected 1823.
Van Dolah's, near Dilt's Corner, hexagon, erected 1822, torn down,
1908.
Sergeant's, near Sergeantsville, still standing but enlarged, 1830.
Stockton, erected 1832.
Union, in Union township, erected 1837.
Oregon, near Croton, no date, part of walls still standing; hexagon.
* The pictures of schoolhouses produced by Mr. Deats at the meeting- were
in local publications and we have not acquired copies. They resembled in all
particulars the other octagonal schoolhouses of which we give illustrations.
302 OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "eIGHT SQUARe" SCHOOLHOUSES
Harmony, on the road from Ringoes to Croton, erected 1851; stand-
ing until about 1901.
Mt. Lebanon, in Lebanon township, erected in 1835, torn down 1876.
Sand Brook, about four miles from Stockton, standing in 1860.
All of these were built to succeed log of frame schoolhouses
and with the exception of Oregon, some history of the districts
and schools and schoolhouses is given in a manuscript "History
of the School Districts of Hunterdon County," written by Cor-
nelius S. Conkling in 1870, then county superintendent of schools.
Having heard of an octagonal schoolhouse near Gloucester, N.
J., I wrote to David J. Doran in regard to it, and received the
following reply :
"In reply to your letter inquiring about an eight-square schoolhouse
in this place, I would say that it stood on the north side of Big Timber
Creek, near the bridge, and faced a famous highway that ran from
Salem to Gloucester, and every Tuesday and Friday the famous Fox
Hunting club used to pass, gaudily attired and mounted on thorough-
breds, with a pack of forty hounds, on a fox chase in the woods from
1766 to 1814. It was built long ago and the door faced the old Salem
road, now wiped out, as a straighter road was built in 1844 about a
hundred yards away. The house was of brick about the same size as
others of its kind and exact dimensions can be found in some book on
rural schools. It was on the ground and had no cellar, nor woodshed,
the wood being in a pile which the boys chopped (being farmers sons
and used to this work), the w^ood stove that heated the school was in
the center of the room the pipe leading up to the chimney hole with a
short chimney in the center of the octagonal roof. The windows were
long, one in each side and with twelve panes and around the door was
a portico. Scholars attending this school say the desk did not stand
(fastened) against the wall, as described in historical matter relating to
such schools, but insist that the desks stood so that the light fell over
their shoulders, and the benches were against the walls. The small
boys and girls were seated in the center of the room and the teacher's
desk was to the left on entering and a bucket with cup was used for
drinking. The boys had to go out into the woods nearby and cut the
rods used in whipping the bad boys. About one hundred scholars were
generally in attendance and the school district was about five miles and
originally was built in colonial days when the farmers in the district
were Quakers, but the latter was a public school. Before 1836 the
school was in old Gloucester City, but scholars from the southern end
used to go there and about three-quarters of a mile from there, lying
near Westville, now a good sized town with its own schools. Miss
Priscilla Redfield, daughter of John Redfield, a historian, used to teach
there and some of the scholars grew up and got rich. There were
several other eight-square schoolhouses in this section, all were brick.
OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED ''eIGHT SQUARE" SCHOOLHOUSES 303
The old log school has passed away without any trace although I am
positive they were in this state. I cannot find any eight-square school-
houses standing around here, but I've heard there are some left in your
state of Pennsylvania. The school I've described was plastered, against
the brick on the sides and ceiling squared away leaving a little attic,
the roof was of shingles."
OCTAGONAL SCHOOLHOUSES IN BUCKS COUNTY.
The octagonal schoolhouses in Bucks county of which we have
record were nine in number as follows :
1. Oxford or Neeld Eight Square in Lower Makefield near
Oxford Valley, with date stone marked "1775," which corre-
sponds with the date of the conveyance of the lot to trustees.
(D. B. 18, p. 211.) Dr. Mercer, however, basing his opinion on
a scientific investigation of its construction made by Frank K.
Swain, claims that it was built as late as 1830. (A full text of
Dr. Mercer's opinion is hereto attached.) The date- stone may
have been taken from an earlier building on the site. General
Davis says that the youth of Yardleyville attended this school,
until an octagonal schoolhouse was erected on the site of Oak
Grove schoolhouse.
2. Penns Park, on the Swamp road at its intersection with the
Second Street Pike, about one mile southwest of the village of
Penns Park in \\'rightstown township. It was erected in 1802,
and is described by Alden M. Collins in a paper read at our meet-
ing last June at the Buckingham Meeting-house. The outside
measurement of the walls is 11 feet 2 inches on each face. Walls
8 feet high and 18 inches thick. Windows in each face except
the one occupied by the door. Window apertures 3 feet 9 inches
by 2 feet 8 inches high. Pyramid shaped roof surmounted at
apex by a hooded pipe in the place of a chimney. Roof originally
of shingles, now covered with tin.
3. Franklin, near Bursonville, in Springfield township, said to
have been built in 1807 or 1809, but no proof submitted showing
so early a date. I was unable to find deeds to trustees for the
site. A full description of this schoolhouse and the school con-
ducted therein is given in the Riegclsvillc News of October 9,
1901, and in a paper read June 9, 1900, by Miss Myra Brodt,
before the Buckwampun Historical Society. The construction
corresponds with that of other octagon schoolhouses given in
304 OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "EIGHT SQUARE" SCIIOOLHOUSES
this narrative. A window in each of the seven sides, and the
door in the eighth ; teacher's desk opposite door ; stove in centre ;
surrounded by benches used by scholars too small to write ;
bucket of water on bench near the door and the usual paddle or
tag hung at the door with "out" and "in" on it. William J.
Buck, our early historian, was one of the founders, and a trustee
of this school. The desks as described differ from those de-
scribed in the other schools, as they were "closed with lids fast-
ened on hinges." Several incidents in the history of the school
are given in this sketch, and a reference to the kind of books
used. The fields surrounding the schoolhouse were many times
surveyed, in giving the pupils practical education in surveying.
4. Leidytown, in Hilltown township, at intersection of Bethle-
hem road with road from Chalfont, built 1816. Miss Euphemia
James, who attended school there, has given interesting reminis-
censes. Long since torn down.
5. Stewart's, in New Britain township, on the Ferry road,
near Fountainville, built in 1816, torn down by Arthur Chapman,
on whose land it was located, the site having reverted to him by
lapse of school several years ago.
6. Hickory Grove, on the Durham road, in Buckingham, near
Plumstead township line, built 1818 (D. B. 46, p. 500). replaced
by present rectangular stone building several years ago. Built
by subscribers from Buckingham and Plumstead. Originally
called Union Schoolhouse.
7. Groveland, in Plumstead township, near Hinkletown, ad-
joining the Mennonite Meeting-house, lot conveyed to trustees in
1833. (D. B. 58, p. 10.) It was built of planks spiked laterally
to upright posts and lathed and plastered inside and out. Was,
as near as we can learn, of about the same size and form and
equipped in the same way as the stone octagons.
8. Mine Spring, in Bridgeton township, near Rupletown. Our
fellow member, J. H. Fitzgerald, who attended school there, says
it was a school fifty years ago. It appears on Scott's Atlas of
1876.
9. Lumberville, at the intersection of the State road with the
road from Lumberville to Carversville, a short distance west of
the present Green Hill schoolhouse, stood an octagon school-
OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "EIGHT SQUARE" SCHOOLHOUSES 305
house erected in 1824, on land conveyed by Abraham Paxson to
Samuel Hartley, Esq., Robert Livezy and David McCray, trus-
tees for the subscribers to a fund for building a schoolhouse.^
A school was maintained there until about 1858. During the
last fifteen years of that period it was under the common school
system of Pennsylvania. By deed dated June 24, 1858, the then
trustees (surviving) John E. Kenderdine, Amos Armitage and
Cyrus Livezey, conveyed the lot to the school directors of Sole-
bury township. It was then about to be abandoned, and was
almost immediately conveyed by the school directors to Hiram
Keise and was used for some years as a dwelling. This deed
contains the following clause: "Whereas owing to insufficient
size and dilapidated condition of the schoolhouse, rendering it
vmsuitable to supply the present wants of the neighborhood and
the operation of the school law making it unnecessary that the
neighborhood should rebuild the house, the proprietors have di-
rected the said trustees to convey the said house and lot to the
Solebury School District.
Our friend, Thaddeus S. Kenderdine, in his "History of the
Kenderdine Family," page 244, gives a history and description of
this schoolhouse, which is accompanied by a cut thereof. Mr.
Kenderdine gives the date of erection as 1823. The deed for
the property is dated February 21, 1824, and the schoolhouse
had probably been erected in the autumn preceding.
Mr. Kenderdine says the school-room was not over ten yards
across. "Besides the desks circling the walls two rows crossed
the room and next to these were benches for the smaller chil-
dren, who sat in discomfort for their feet swung above the
floor. Still in front of these were the reciting classes."
A huge ten plate stove used to heat the room in earlier
days, was changed to a cylinder stove when coal came into use.
We have more or less minute descriptions of several of the
octagonal schoolhouses in the above lists as well as a number of
the schoolhouses in other localities, and they all correspond
more or less in size and form of construction, as well as in the
internal arrangements. The schoolhouse at Newtown Square,
of which we give an illustration, made from a draft by an archi-
tect, shows the desks and seats of the scholars dififerently ar-
1 Deed Book No. 70, p. 575.
306 OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "eIGHT SQUARE^ SCHOOLHOUSES
ranged than in the octagonal schoolhouses either in Bucks and
other counties, or in New Jersey, in that the scholars sat facing
the center of the room instead of, as in other schools, facing the
walls. The arrangement of the chimney and location of the
stove is exactly similar in the descriptions we have obtained.
The chimney was built upon timbers, extending across the school-
house, resting on the top of the walls, and supporting a ceiling,
where, as usual, there was a ceiling. These chimneys were built
either of stone or brick, and extended up through the peak of
the roof, and the stove was located in the center of the room, a
pipe extending directly upward into the chimney at the ceiling.
In the case of the Penns Park schoolhouse, No. 2, in the
above list, there does not seem to have been any chimney, the
stove pipe extending directly up through the apex of the roof,
and provided with a hood at its terminus.
C. Yardley Stradling sent us a detailed description of the Neeld
or Oxford schoolhouse, especially the arrangement of the chim-
ney, which corresponds with our statement made above.
Dr. Mercer's opinion in reference to the Neeld octagonal school-
house is as follows :
"Neeld Octagon Schoolhouse as examined by Frank K. Swain on
Sept. 25, 1920, is an octagon built of surface sandstone laid in crumbling
lime and sand mortar with walls 18 inches thick and 7 feet and 9 inches
high inside, plastered outside and in. The whole 24 feet 1 inch in di-
ameter inside and with its inside faces 10 feet wide. It shows a recent
shingle roof, modern shutters nailed fast, a little brick chimney 21 K'
inches by 9 inches at its apex, one entrance door and windows, with
sashes lost, in each wall face except that of the door.
The floor of the single interior room built over a two feet deep cellar,
with a central foundation wall for its rafters, is level with the outer
ground. All the furniture of this old schoolroom and its attachments
are gone, but several blocks and strips, walled in the interior wall, show
that there was a teacher's platform opposite the door about six inches
high, and that a washboard, a fixed desk on plank ends against the wall
with narrow top board and bottom shelf, and a series of wooden hat-
pegs on the window top level, encircled the entire room. All the old
window sash are gone. So is the door. The door opening is boxed
and the window openings boxed above and below but plastered on the
sides. The original river lath and plastered ceiling follows the rafters
for about three feet and then crosses the room forming a truncated octa-
gonal ceiling with a stove pipe hole encased with an earthenware tube
in its flat center, 10 feet above the floor, thus concealing a sealed up
OCTAGONAL OR SO-CALLED "EIGHT SQUARE" SCHOOLHOUSES 307
doorless small garret in the apex which hides the interior of the Uttle
brick flue there suspended.
Notwithstanding the red sandstone date stone, dated '1775,' and left
unplastered on the outer wall space, next to the left of the door face,
the well preserved cut nails, with machine squared, and not hand ham-
mered, heads, hence not of the earliest type, found by us in the original
riven lath of the ceiling, and in the original moulding edging the original
wall fastenings around the windows, are entirely out of place and im-
possible in a building constructed in 1775, when only wrought nails
were used. In spite of the loss of nearly all the distinctive interior
fittings, these tell-tale nails indicate that the date stone above men-
tioned is a relic of an older building, and proves that this schoolhouse
was built, not in 1775, but in the first quarter of the 19th century."
With all due deference to Dr. Mercer's knowledge of the con-
struction of old houses and his remarkable ability in dating them
from the construction, we think it is possible that the ceiling and
inside plastering with its original mouldings, may have been
added fifty years after the erection of the schoolhouse. How-
ever, inasmuch as General Davis reports a tradition that the
youth from Yardley attended this school before an eight-square
schoolhouse was erected on the site of Oak Grove school in
Yardley, it looks to me as if the "erection of the eight-square
schoolhouse" pertained to the renewal of the old schoolhouse at
Oxford, instead of the new one at Oak Grove, and the tradition
got mixed to that extent.
Sketch of Dr. Jonathan Ingham.
BY JOHN HALL INGHAM, ESQ., PHILADELPHIA, PA.
(Doylestown Meeting-, January 15, 1921.)
THE grandfather of Dr. Jonathan Ingham, Jonas Ingham, a
native of England and a member of the Society of Friends,
came to New England about 1705 and in 1730 moved with
his family to Bucks county, Pennsylvania. His only son, Jona-
than, succeeded to his father's farm and fulling-mill.
Among the grants of land made by William Penn in 1702 was
one of about five hundred acres to James Logan, his secretary,
located in a limestone region along the upper reaches of the Dela-
ware, in Solebury township, and abutting on the Proprietary
Manor of Highlands. This was a beautiful domain and was
called in Logan's patent the "Great Spring Tract" and by the
Indians "Aquetong". In 1741 Logan sold two hundred acres of
this property to Jacob Dean and the residue, in 1747, to Dean's
brother-in-law, Jonathan Ingham. The latter lot included the
Great Spring and this property remained in the possession of the
Ingham family for over one hundred years. Jonathan Ingham
was successful as a farmer and clothier, filled the offices of justice
and judge and, as a member of the Colonial Assembly, took an
active part in the contests of that body with the Proprietaries.
Jonathan, by his wife, Deborah Bye, had three sons, John,
Jonas and Jonathan. The last-named, who is the subject of the
present sketch, was born at Great Spring on July 16, 1744. The
father was a narrow^ sectarian and, considering the heretical
views of the oldest son, John, a proof of a disordered mind,
sent him to a hospital for lunatics, where he died soon after.
This measure was disapproved of by the two brothers, especially
by Jonathan, but such autocratic proceedings were more in vogue
in those patriarchal days than they fortunately are now.
The tastes of Jonas were scientific and he became a mathema-
tician and a natural philosopher and made several useful me-
chanical inventions. He, too, seriously offended his father by an
unsanctioned marriage and, as a result of this, Jonathan was later
placed at the head of the paternal establishment.
SKETCH OF DR. JONATHAN INGHAM 309
Jonathan early in life showed a great fondness for languages,
especially for the Greek and Latin classics, of which he acquired
considerable knowledge with little or no assistance. At the age
of nineteen, a disagreement with his father threw him on his own
resources and he became an assistant on the farm of Dr. Paschal,
near Darby. The latter had a fine library and this gave the young
assistant an opportunity of extending his classical studies during
his leisure hours. Such a predilection aroused the doctor's in-
terest and he decided to offer the young man a situation as stu-
dent of medicine and this oft'er was gladly accepted. A lifelong
friendship between the two was the result and, when his studies
were completed, Jonathan, it is thought through the intercession
of the doctor, was invited home and, as has been said, placed at
the head of the establishment. At the age of twenty-five he
married Ann Welding of Bordentown, New Jersey, and, with
the aid of her portion, was enabled to purchase the family estate.
They had eleven children, of whom the fifth, Samuel Delucenna
Ingham, became prominent in the political life of the nation and
was Secretary of the Treasury in Jackson's administration. The
writer of the present sketch is his grandson.
Dr. Jonathan Ingham became a well-known practitioner, in
addition to his labors as manager of the farm and the fulling-
mill. His ledger from September 1782 to May 1786 has come
into the possession of this society and a few remarks on it will
not be out of place. It starts with an estimate of his cattle and
horses at £1,325 10s, of the house furniture at £132 10s, and
of the framing utensils at £62. Daily disbursements and re-
ceipts are entered with great regularity and the accounts of the
house, the farm, the fulling-mill and the sawmill are interspersed
among those of his numerous patients. Among their names are
many still extant in the county, such as Coryell, Paxton, Ross,
Lear. Ely. \\'atson. Scarborough, etc.. and there is a Thomas
Biddle. who suggests the neighboring metropolis. There are pa-
tients, too. of humbler rank, such as Negros Jack, Tony, Peter,
Sam, Dina and Hellens. Molatto (sic) James. Indian Dina, Dutch
Jacob and Cobble John. Inoculations are frequent and seem to
cost from lis. to £1 2s. 6d. per person, while bleedings cost
about Is. 6d. and there is a charge of 3s. 9d. for gelding a calf.
There is an account with "Wife's Estate in Jersey" and a debit
310 SKETCH OF DR. JONATHAN INGHAM
"To Cash, Rum, etc.", £1 2s. would not please the prohibition-
ists, if there were any such at that time. In Abraham Littleton's
account the value of "a Spinning Machine left useless on my
Hands at his Death" is placed at £7, 10s. A careful examination
of this ledger will repay those interested in antiquarian and
genealogical researches.
The doctor, notwithstanding his many preoccupations, con-
tinued his studies, became a good Greek and Latin scholar, under-
stood German also, and was tolerably versed in Hebrew, French
and Spanish. He translated many of the Odes of Pindar and
Theocritus and turned some of the books of Fenelon's "Tele-
maque" into English verse. He could converse with one tribe of
Indians in their own dialect.
I have before me a manuscript translation of the elegy on the
death of Bion by Moschus, 58 stanzas, with a refrain, in which
the versification is smooth and scholarly. I quote three verses
and the refrain in full :
1.
Ye spacious bending Forests moan,
Let vocal Rocks and Mountains groan,
Let every murmuring Stream
More tuneful, more melodious flow
In solemn ecstacy of woe
To deck the ushering theme.
3.
Alone may Flowers on Ivy blow,
No more their dearest sweets bestow.
The Roses of the morn.
The Anemone in concert blest
To deck the beauteous Virgin's breast
Shall now no more be worn.
4.
The lettered Hyacinth but show
In lasting characters of woe
How we our loss deplore.
Alas! alas, be plainer read
LIpon its lowlier drooping head.
Since Bion is no more.
(Refrain)
Sicilian Muses, come begin the strain
In all your moving elegance of verse.
O, by your influence sadly soothe our pain.
To latest times our poignant woes rehearse.
SKETCH OF DR. JONATHAN INGHAM 311
The Revolution coming on. he entered with zest into the spirit
of the American cause. His brother Jonas took the field as
officer of a volunteer corps and the doctor constantly gave his
professional services to the troops. In fact he was enlisted him-
self, as shown in the return of Capt. Robert Laning's Company
in Solebury in 1782, (see Pa. Archives, Series 5, Vol. 5, p. 551).
And, as to Jonas, see the same volume, pp. 330, 337-8, 4G6, 441.
The Ingham estate was the camping ground of George Wash-
ington and his troops on their retreat from New Jersey in 1776
and the buildings were used as hospitals, with Jonathan in con-
stant attendance on the sick and wounded.
When the war closed, he took an active part on the side of the
Republican W^higs and wTote much against what he considered
the monarchical tendencies of certain measures. He denounced
the scheme of funding the w^ar debt for the exclusive benefit of
speculators, while the poor soldier, for all his services and suffer-
ings, had to be content to receive two shillings and sixpence to
the pound for his certificate. Many of his neighbors disapproved
of his politics, but he "silenced them by the pungent satire of his
burlesque Pindarics".
During the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793,
the doctor visited the city to make a scientific study of the dis-
ease. After his return home, hearing that many of the physicians
had fled from the plague-smitten city, he denounced such conduct
and in his indignation decided to go back. W'ith his friends.
Dr. Hutchinson and Samuel Wetherill, Jr., he visited and helped
to relieve the sufferers in the most infected districts. Dr. Benja-
min Rush, a signer of the Declaration, was engaged in the same
splendid work and was honored by the Czar of Russia with a gift
of a fine ruby as an appreciation of his services therein. Dr.
Ingham finally contracted the disease and, having a great belief
in the medicinal value of Schooley's Mountain Springs, started
for that place with his wife and her brother in a farm wagon.
The houses along the way refused to take him in and he died in
the wagon at the roadside at a point about one mile west of
Clinton, N. J., October 1, 1793. He was buried in the grave-
yard of the Bethlehem, N. J.. Presbyterian Church.
Broom Making By Hand
BY GRIER SCHEETZ, BETHLEHEM, PA.
(Doylestown Meeting, January 15, 1921.)
AGES have passed and gone and so far as the memory of
man runs there always has been a woman and a broom.
Witches are always represented as riding on a broom.
The cave-woman used a branch of spruce or hemlock for her
broom, while during the time of Christ, Holy Writ informs us,
rooms were swept and garnished. It remained, however, for Dr.
Benjamin Franklin to introduce broomcorn into the United States.
He found an imported whisk in the possession of a woman in
Philadelphia and asked permission to examine it. He found a
single seed upon a splint of the whisk. This he appropriated and
planted. The crop produced from this single seed was replanted
and the product was made into brooms. It is said that the whisk
in the possession of this woman came from the East Indies. It
may be surprising when I state that over the past one hundred
years there has been very little change made in the manufacture
of house brooms by hand. Sixty years ago John Charles, of
Keller's Church, in Bedmister township, traveled from one farm
to another with his tackle of rope, clamp, needle, twine, and
curry-comb to make up the broomcorn into brooms for the va-
rious 'farmers. At that time brooms could not be purchased at
any store. In later years the merchants purchased the surplus
brooms from the farmers and oflfered them for sale.
Previous to the raising of broomcorn men went into the forest
and cut smooth hickory saplings about three inches thick and
live feet long. These they placed into an old-fashioned wooden
vise and with a sharp drawing knife began cutting or shaving in
splints about eighteen inches from the butt end. These were
drawn or shaved down to within about five inches of the same
end. The sapling was then turned until the first layer was
formed. The splints were repeatedly turned down over the butt
end until the sapling had been reduced to one and one-half
inches. This was securely tied with linen cord thus making a
splint broom of from six to eight inches through the center. The
BROOM MAKING BY HAND 313
remainder of the sapling was cut or shaved down to about one
and one-half inches. This became the handle of the splint broom.
At the present time one will occasionally find a broom of that
kind used as a barn or stable broom.
Broomcorn is planted at the same time and in the same man-
ner as field, or Indian corn. After the stalk has grown toward
maturity the top becomes heavy from the weight of the seed and
begins to spread. At this time it must be bent over about twenty-
four or thirty inches from the top so that the seed hangs down
along the stalk. This becomes necessary so as to prevent the
seed from spreading at the top. After the seed has ripened the
bent part is cut off, placed in bundles, and taken to the barn. If
raised for the market the seed is removed by a machine similar
to a clover huller. The broomcorn is then placed in bales and is
ready for shipment. In former years the seed was thrown away
or burned, however, it is now fed to fowls and cattle. The old
method was to remove the seed with a flax hatchel, and later with
a currycomb. In Bucks and neighboring counties the farmers
still raise broomcorn for their own use, usually taking it to the
broommaker with its seed.
James Bergey, of Perkasie, who is now sixty-five years of age
has made brooms for many years. He, too, in years gone by, has
used the currycomb to remove the seeds. He now, however, has
a machine similar to a clover huller, which is called a power
scraper, that removes the seeds. This machine is operated by foot-
power. Mr. Bergey, when he wishes to make a broom, places a
handle into a machine known as a cage broom winder, also
operated by foot-power. He inserts the end of a wire, instead of
twine or cord, into a hole in the handle. Enough broomcorn is
used to make one layer around the broom handle. By motion of
the foot the handle revolves and as it does so binds the broom-
corn to it by means of the wire that has been inserted. A bunch
of broomcorn is next placed on each side of the handle so as to
make the shoulder. Still more broomcorn is added, this time
with the butt end reversed. This is wired as before and turned
back over the other layer. A hasp is placed over the broomcorn
to keep it together and another layer, the same as the first and
placed as before, is added. As many layers are added as are
necessary to make the brooms lighter or heavier as desired. The
314 BROOM MAKING BY HAND
hasp is now removed and again placed over the added layer.
The edges of the broomcorn around the handle are hammered
down with a dull edged pounder in order to make the broomcorn
fit snug around it. A thin layer of broomcorn, called the hurl,
is then put on to make a neat finish. The brace is then removed
and a cap made of tin is placed over the top and wired fast.
The broom at this stage is round in appearance, and is removed
to the clamp or press, which is equipped with two upright jaws
about three feet high, operated by a powerful lever. The broom
is then inserted into these jaws, the lever pressed down, and the
broomcorn flattened into the shape of a broom, after which it is
sewed. Mr. Bergey uses a double pointed steel needle with the
eye in the middle and a filed groove running through the center.
This needle, made by himself, sews the broom in such a way
that he need not turn the needle, thus saving the time it other-
wise takes to turn it. He uses a leather cuiT on each hand with
a steel disk, or plate, over the ball of his thumb by which he
pushes the needle through the broomcorn. In making a broom of
short broomcorn he places one layer within one inch of the butt
of the handle where it is wired ; he adds another layer two inches
back and also wires that. A third layer is placed two inches above
the second layer. This is sewed in three dififerent places. When
the good housewife uses the first layer to where it is sewed she
cuts the cord, or string, which opens the second layer and then
has a renewed broom. The broom now practically completed is
removed from the clamp and taken to the broom clipper, which
is shaped like a feed cutter, where the bottom of the broom is
neatly trimmed.
Benjamin Steeley, also of Perkasie, used the method of making
brooms that was in vogue one hundred years ago. First he
places the broomcorn in hot water to make it soft and pliable.
Next he takes a bunch of broomcorn large enough to make a
broom and places it in a slip loop of a three-fourth inch rope
fastened to a post or rafter, with the loop about six inches from
the floor. He places his foot upon the bunch of broomcorn close
to the loop and bears the weight of his body upon it, at the same
time drawing the ends of the broomcorn as tight as possible.
When he ties the head of the broom with twine he places the
bundle of broomcorn, which at this stage is almost round, into
BROOM MAKING BY HAND 315
a wooden clamp. This wooden clamp consists of two pieces of
wood,three by fifteen inches, with a bolt at each end. He turns
down the nuts and flattens out the broom and begins to sew it
with a needle about eight inches long. At one time he used a
wooden needle. The broom being finished the handle is sharpened
at the butt end and driven into the head, or top, of the broom.
A nail is driven through the corn into the handle to hold it se-
cure. This completes the making of the broom.
(Mr. Scheetz illustrated his paper by exhibiting brooms in the
different process of manufacture, and answering many questions
concerning them.)
Ancient Methods of Threshing in Bucks County.
BY DR. HENRY C. MERCER, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Doylestown Meeting, January 15, 1921.)
BEFORE the general introduction of the threshing machine,
1835-1850, there were two methods of threshing wheat,
rye and other grain, in use in Bucks county, namely :
1, very commonly by means of the flail; 2, very rarely by
trampling with the feet of animals.
Other devices were in use at that time in Europe and probably
in the United States, for instance, 3, a grooved or spiked log,
axeled at one end to a stake, and pulled around over the straw
in a circle by an animal, called in Chester county a "Tumbling
Tom," as I was informed about 1897 by the late Alfred Paschal ;
4, a long flexible stick as used in France (Dauphiny and Provi-
dence), about 1840, according to the Agricultural Treatise, called
"Maison Rustique," by Dr. Alexander Bixio, Paris, 1844. a
direct descendant of the Roman Pertica, or threshing stafif de-
scribed by Pliny Natural History, XVIII, 72.5, a fluted wooden
roller, used in Lombardy in 1890 (according to Knight's Amer-
ican Mechanical Dictionary), or otherwise a wagon on several
rollers, set around with serrated iron rings, on which the driver
sits, used in Egypt about 1850, and there called Noreg. (See
Rich's Companion to the Latin Lexicon, Longman's London,
316 ANCIENT METHODS OF THRESHING IN BUCKS COUNTY
1848) a counterpart of the Plostellum Punicum introduced into
ancient Italy from Carthage and described by Varro Rerum
Rusticarum 1.51.2. 6, a drag or frame on one or more planks
shaped Hke a Canadian toboggan, roughened on the bottom
with flints or pieces of iron, and weighted with stones,
upon which the driver sits, drawn by oxen, mules or horses over
the straw, seen by travelers in use in Asia Minor about 1850, (in
Pictorial Gallery of the Useful Arts, London, Hart, Harrower
& Co., 1848), being a survival of the Roman Tribulum or Tribula
described in Varro Rerum Rusticarum 1.52.1 and Pliny Natural
History XVIII. 72 and Virgil Georgics 1.164.
The writer has thus far been unable to find evidence of the
use of any of these methods in the United States except the first
two, information as to 3 being only hearsay. But as the Amer-
ican pioneers at first reverted to very primitive devices, there is
no reason why they may not have used 4, 5 or 6 and we have
cited them here with authority for the use of future investigators
of this important subject, and turn particularly to 1 and 2.
THRESHING BY THE TREAD OF ANIMALS.
The late Stacy S. Weaver, while in my employ, told me in
1918, that he had been employed about 1860 to thresh grain by
leading horses over the straw, upon the wooden floor of a log
barn on the left bank of Tinicum creek, about two miles south
of Headquarters, now Sundale.
This is coroborated by William J. Buck in his "Local Sketches
and Legends," printed in 1887, and also by the Rev. Dr. A. R.
Home, The Pennsylvania German (Allentown, T. K. Home,
1910), who quotes a Pennsylvania-German poem, which says in
only two lines that the early German settlers threshed rye with
flails, and the wheat with horses which they rode around on the
straw for a long time.
THRESHING WITH THE FLAIL.
But as compared with this comparatively little employed pro-
cess, the flail was the well known threshing implement in uni-
versal use in Bucks county from its earliest settlement (as in the
United States from the time of Jamestown and the Mayflower).
to the middle of the nineteenth centurv. This ancient instru-
ANCIENT METHODS OF THRESHING IN BUCKS COUNTY
317
ment. not mentioned in the Bible, and not probably used by the
Romans, has been employed in Europe and Asia (Japan) ever
since the Middle Ages, although Capt. John Smith says that
the Turks used bats and not flails in his time. It consists of the
hand staff held by the workman, and the club which strikes the
grain (called "swiple" by the Dictionary of Arts and Sciences.
318 ANCIENT METHODS OF THRESHING IN BUCKS COUNTY
1763, and "souple" or "swiple" by Knight, and "swipple" or
"swingel" by Webster. The coupling of the former to the latter
is variously constructed and imperfectly described. It is called
"whang" (in Knight) and "cupplings") in the Dictionary of
Arts and Sciences).
Of the many varieties of this primitive implement, the twenty
or more flails in our museum show two types, a. (2 specimens
right in picture.) Those with a small swivel on the hand staff
to hold the club or swingle, and b. those with a knob and loop
on the hand staff for the same purpose.
In our museum, No. 8860, from Bucks county, the slightly
tapering hand staff of hickory 4' 4" by 1% to ^" thick, is en-
closed at the small end by a very neat hickory swivel (called
"heading" in Knight) entirely enclosing a 4}^" wide circular
notch ending in a knob and bound fast by two wires double
wound on two outer shallow notches. A Mr. Hollenbach of
Pipersville made swivels like these but bound with leather thongs
instead of wire, used as he tells me (1920) by Harvey Crou-
thamel, about 1890. The club of this flail is 2' 4" 'long of oak.
and 1^" swelling to 2^" thick. It is perforated at the small end
with a hole ^4 " ^^ diameter, through which a loop, (called "middle
band" by the Dictionary of Arts and Sciences), stretching 3", and
consisting of 6 wraps of a single piece of whitish leather neatly
knotted at the ends connects it with the wooden loop of the
swivel on the hand staff.
The construction of the much heavier flail. No. 9646, with hand
staff of hickory 5' long by l^^ to 1" thick and a hickory club
2' 5" long by 2" thick, is similar, but the hickory swivel showing
bark is a 2" by 1%"" long strip bent over the end of the hand staff
and revolving around the three notches in it, coinciding with
three similar notches on the staff, around which three double
thongs grasp first loosely the staff and then tightly the swivel.
The coupling from this swivel to the club is a three inch long
loop made of two wraps of a single leather >^" wide strap slit at
one end and knotted through the slit at the other.
In the similar lighter and smaller No. 7177, from Bucks county,
with oak staff and hickory club, the hickory swivel otherwise re-
sembling the former, has but two notches coinciding as before
with notches on the hand staff for its revolutions around the
ANCIENT METHODS OF THRESHING IN BUCKS COUNTY 319
latter, while in No. 3492, marked with the monogram AI. I. on the
club, from Bucks county, the similar two notched swivel is made
not of wood but of a heavy leather strap.
The swivel on No. 9643, from New Jersey, with hand staiT and
club of oak, is a horseshoe shaped loop of wrought iron, revolv-
ing upon the end of an iron pin driven into the end of the staff
and held there with a ferule of iron.
Variety b (2 specimens, middle in picture) is represented by
No. 6759 from Bucks county, with oaken staff and hickory club,
where the suddenly tapered hand staff ends in a knob around
which a leather thong is loosely tied in three strands and con-
tinued in a loop through the hole in the club.
In No. 4175, from New Jersey, all apparently of hickory, the
above mentioned two loops are not fastened with one piece of
leather but with two. First a thong is four times wrapped loosely
around the knob and tied, then under this a single strap passes in
the form of a loop with its two ends riveted wuth three copper
rivets through the hole in the club.
No. 2797 seems to be a makeshift, repaired with fish cord and
showing swivel notches. A strap is tightly looped so as not to re-
volve on the notched end of the hand staff. A heavy strap loop
runs through the club hole and then a third loop connects these
two loops so that the whole instrument, though apparently a
•makeshift, seems to correspond to the description of the English
flail of 1763. given in the Dictionary of Arts and Sciences.
In our collection, the club is always, but the hand staff never
perforated for the attachment of the thongs, the movable loop,
which I here call swivel, always being upon the hand staff.
Harvey Crouthamel tells me that he never used or heard of the
use of raw hide and that though he sometimes oiled an iron swivel
used by him, he never greased the thongs.
I find no raw hide thongs in our collection and no eel skin,
though tradition describes the latter as used. Harvey Crouthamel
tells me that he threshed buckwheat with a flail for my uncle,
Arthur Chapman, about 1900, one mile north of Doylestown, and
frequently threshed wheat, oats and rye on farms in Bucks
county in the 1880's and 1890's, when one to four persons laid
the sheaves head to head, threshed, turned and rethreshed them
while still bound, then unbound the sheaves, spread, threshed and
320 ANCIENT METHODS OF THRESHING IN BUCKS COUNTY
turned and rethreshed the straw, thus going over it four times.
I learned from Crouthamel and Mathias Hall, who have
worked with the flail, that the sheaves were never thrown down
confusedly on the threshing floor but laid side by side in rows
and where more than one row was threshed always placed head
to head. The turning which consisted in laying the wheat, rye
or oats stalks whether bound or unbound, when threshed out on
one side, upside down so as to get at the bottom husks, was never
done, they said, with the prongs or handle of a fork or rake, but
always by grasping the loose straw or the yet unbound sheaves
in the arms, and lifting and replacing them in the same position.
or behind the workman as he turned round, or elsewhere on the
floor, in a fresh row.
Our museum No. 17153 shows a swiveled flail bought by Mr.
Francis C. Mireau, in Montgomery county on November 9, 1920.
Tied to it is a sharpened hickory staff 23 inches long and 1%
inches thick at the base. This staff was used according to the
owners account to slide more easily than the fingers under the
grain stalks in turning them for threshing. Then one hand
held the staff while the other grasped the straw.
Probably all the old threshing floors now remaining are made of
oak planks, and some are pegged with wood, as in the Armitage
barn in Solebury, built about 1756, nevertheless tradition and
Home's Manual described earlier threshing floors which
Crouthamel never heard of, made of earth.
Though the threshing machine, a revolutionary invention of
tremendous importance, as we now know it, was, according to
Knight produced by several inventions, first in Germany and
then in England between 1772 and 1782. it did not get into gen-
eral use in Bucks county until about 1850. Whoever has ex-
amined it knows that it consists of a metal cylinder armed with
spikes which rapidly revolves in a close fitting circular case, also
furnished with spikes (U. S.), or grooves (England), so as to
instantly tear and slash the straw and unhusk the grain.
At the time of its invention, one hundred years ago, this
would have completely superseded all the ancient forms of thresh-
ing mentioned, flail included, if a cheap and practical power
could have been found to turn it, but as Reese's Encyclopedia,
written about 1800, says, wind mills only worked when the wind
ANCIENT METHODS OF THRESHING IN BUCKS COUNTY 321
blew, fixed water power could not be applied to most barns
where there was no water, and stearn, though introduced about
1820 on large estates was too expensive, while man turned
cranks though used and patented, were too laborious. The only
power at first practically applied was the so-called "Lever Power,"
a very large cogged horizontal wheel turned by horses or cattle
on a turn style. We bought one of these from Mr. Osborne at
Summerseat at Morrisville, for the museum (introduced accord-
ing to Dickson's Dictionary of Agriculture in southern England
in 1805), of date about 1820 to 30, and many according to the in-
formation of T. S. Kenderdine, Mathias Hall and Wilson Wood-
man, were employed by rich farmers in Bucks county before 1835.
One I myself saw at work, surviving upon a farm near Pooles
Corner about 1900, but the device was expensive and took up too
much barn room, so that the flail continued in full use in
Bucks county until the general introduction of the cheap portable
and efificient so-called "Tread Power" at last making the thresh-
ing machine more efficient ( 1835 to 50 ) gradually superceded the
ancient hand tool.
This "Tread Power" is an inclined rolling platform on
which horses or cattle walk so as to revolve a fly wheel at-
tached to the threshing cylinder above mentioned. According to
the "Farmers Mechanical Instructor" by Francis Wiggins
Rogers. Philadelphia. 1840, kindly shown me by Mr. Ely, this
American invention was in general use in eastern Pennsylvania
between 1835-50, under patents by Vosburg, Pitt and A\'arren,
T. S. Kenderdine tells me that his father constructed a device
of this kind in 1830 to turn a gristmill by oxen in Horsham,
Montgomery county. The apparatus, he says, was derived by
his father from notes taken in Ohio, and was made entirely of
wood with an endless chain of little wagons upon wooden rollers
moving upon a wooden track.
\Ye also have in the museum two dog churn powers where an
endless slatted strap rolls on fixed wooden rollers, the upper of
which turns the fly wheel, and we have a tread horsepower like
those still (1920) in use, manufactured by Wm. H. Murray at
his agricultural machine factory at New Hope, about 1859, w^here
an endless chain of little wagons is mounted on cast iron wheels
cogged in a power wheel. Mr. Kenderdine also says that a ma-
322 ANCIENT METHODS OF THRESHING IN BUCKS COUNTY
chine of this kind was used for his father, John E. Kenderdine, in
1842. and was probably made by Cook and Thropp at their
mills at Wells Falls, New Hope, Bucks county.
Thus the flail went out of general use in Bucks county about
1850 but it was not completely abandoned. It survived here
until the beginning of the twentieth century to thresh rye, and
did so because the Bucks county farmer had long used and still
preferred flail threshed rye straw, untorn by the threshing ma-
chine, for the very important and universal purpose of binding
his corn.
In this work the apparatus attached in 1890 to reaping machines
for mechanically binding wheat, rye and oats with twine had not
helped him, for the greater part of Indian corn continued to be cut
and bound by hand. ^ The right kind of twine was not yet avail-
able, and the rye stalks easily hand grasped and knotted held
well around the cornstalks and for a long time continued to be
so employed until the introduction about 1895 of cheap rolls of
tarred twine, easily cut to the desired length, finally superseded
the rye straw. Then the flail disappeared.
In the meantime I learned from Harvey Crouthamel that
until about 1900 some of our small farmers, not owning thresh-
ing machines, sometimes threshed buckwheat with flails as he,
.Crouthamel, did for my uncle, Arthur Chapman, about 1905.
Or that when horse feed ran out on larger farms, oats in small
quantities was thus threshed as a makeshift, and Clarence Rosen-
berger tells me that until about 1905 there was a small demand
for flail-threshed straw in Philadelphia, for use as bedding for
high bred horses. Now (1921) the farmer can buy buckwheat
meal in bags at country stores and has generally ceased to grow
it for his own table use. The motor car has largely superseded
the horse in Philadelphia, and unless the flail is still occasionally
used for horse feed, these requirements have probably all ceased
and could hardly have kept the flail in general use. But after
all they were secondary needs. It was the tarred twine that
finally abolished the ancient instrument about 1905. so that now
^ In 1887 the first patents were taken out for corn harvesters, but the}^
remained in an experimental stage until about 1895. By 1902 the yearly
output had reached but about 44,000. They have not come in general
use in Bucks and adjoining farms.
ANCIENT METHODS OF THRESHING IN BUCKS COUNTY 323
(1921) it is doubtful whether any farmer in Bucks county uses
the flail for any purpose whatever though I may be mistaken.
Since the above was written in 1921 Mrs. Thomas Walker of
Doylestown, living until 1924 at Peters Corner, Solebury town-
ship, Bucks county, Pa., informs the writer (March 19, 1926)
that James Lynn who lived at Peters Corners (go from Mechan-
icsville on main road leading east to Cuttalossa through Peters
Corner, turn right at corner, first house left), and died there in
1924, used a flail for threshing all his small (c. 1 acre) crops of
wheat, rye and oats, certainly in 1923, and possibly in 1924 or
until about the time of his death. He kept a horse, but did not
own either a threshing machine or a "Horse Power", (Tread
Power) apparatus as used by other farmers for working the
former. He had once recently hired (at a minimum cost of ten
dollars per day), a gasoline power turned threshing machine,
but found it too expensive for his small crops. Some of his
grain, thus hand-threshed, he had ground for bread flour or ani-
mal food at Armitages water-power gristmill on Cutalossa creek
in Solebury township.
While correcting the final proof sheets for this paper, in
August 1926, I learn from the Doylestown Agricultural Works,
Dr. B. F. Fackenthal, Jr., of Riegelsville, Levi Yoder of Silver-
dale, and Henry W. Gross of Doylestown, that similar rare, and
generally unheard of, instances of the survival of the flail among
very small farmers in Bucks and its adjoining counties, would
probably be found on diligent search. The Rev. David Gehman
of Fbuntainville, with wide experience among the Pennsylvania
German farmers, as a Mennonite minister, cites another supposed
still-continuing use of the flail in upper Bucks County, namely to
thresh rye straw, as preferred stuffing, for bed mattresses, and
Mrs. Frank K. Swain of Doylestown, says that her father used
the flail for that purpose, at his farm near Gardenville about 1900.
Passing Events (Paper No. 1).
BY FRANK K. SWAIX, DOVLESTOWN, PA.
(Doylestown Meeting, January 15, 1921.)
INTRODUCTION.
THE following notes, the first of a series, have been made to
show that in the whirligig of time many old customs die out
and new ones take their places, which in turn give way to
other new inventions and appliances. Often machines did not
come into general use until long after they were invented and
patented.
These notes may seem trivial and foolish to many of you today
who may be familiar with everything mentioned, as the period
which I am reviewing begins as late as 1880, and extends down
to the present time. However, if three or four customs of the
past, or machines are selected that have been introduced in our
time, and we try to name the exact date when first seen or
used, it will be found that we cannot guess the right date
within from two to six years. How many who saw Glen
Curtis fly for the first time from New York to Philadelphia, can
tell what year it happened? or when we saw the first trolley-car
or automobile, electric light, Christmas tree, chewing gum, mov-
ing pictures or ice cream cones ?
Trolley Roads. The Bucks County Railway Company
started to lay their tracks from Willow Grove to Doylestown in
1897 and completed them in March, 1898, according to informa-
tion of Mr. A. A. Mitten of the Rapid Transit Company. The
first passenger car entered Doylestown on a hot afternoon in
May, of that year, running up as far as State street. A large
crowd quickly gathered and Mr. George P. Brock, a promoter,
who was on the car, asked the people to get on and take a free
ride, which they did, thinking they would be taken to Bridge
Point and returned. The car went down Main street as far as
Mr. John Hart's residence where the people were ordered ofif,
as the car would not return, much to the disgust of several stout
women who were obliged to walk up the long hill, in the hot
PASSING EVENTS (PAPER NO. l) 325
afternoon sun, laden with well filled market baskets. The cars
were of the short, four wheeled "dinkey" type with revolving-
chairs covered with matting. These were considered fine at first
but later, when the catches were worn out they would revolve
without warning when the cars rounded a curve and you never
knew whose lap you would be thrown into. The terminus was
on State street, in front of the Fountain House yard and the
waiting room was on State street in the building connected with
the Fountain House livery. Trolley roads in the country were
new at that time and it was very pleasant to ride through the
beautiful rolling country, down the York road, past fine estates
with well kept lawns which could not be seen from the steam
railroad. The fare was thirty-five cents from Doylestown to
Market street, Philadelphia, while the steam road fare was $1.14.
The cheapness of the trip, aside from the pleasure, enabled the
country people to go to town several times a year to do their
shopping instead of buying in Doylestown and the cars ran well
filled for years. Two or three years later the company went
into the hands of a receiver, as many trolley companies do. and
later became the property of the Philadelphia Rapid Transit
Company, which owns it at the present time. Two years before
that road was built, or in May, 1896, Willow Grove Park opened.
The trolley road from Philadelphia to that popular amusement
resort having been finished in 1895. Large coaches left the
Fountain House, Doylestown, every Sunday at noon carrying
passengers to \\'illow Grove, returning at midnight, for fifty cents
the round trip, until the Doylestown trolley was built.
The Easton trolley road was finished from Easton to Revere
and from Doylestown to Red Hill in the spring of 1904. Old
broken down hacks from Doylestown were used to carry passen-
gers over the connecting link from Red Hill to Revere until the
road was completely finished. Instead of following the turn-
pike out of Doylestown the cars left Main street at the foot of
Germany Hill (owing to an injunction against them), going out
Lacey avenue and through fields to the Grove place near Cross
Keys Hotel, although the track extended out North Main street
to the Dublin pike where there was a dead end. The company
had to run a car to that terminus once a month to hold its
right-of-wav. The first car ran to the Dublin oike on Christmas
326 PASSING EVENTS (PAPER NO. l)
Day 1904. Later a new law overrode the injunction and allowed
the company to extend its tracks from the Dublin pike to meet
the elbow at the Grove place. This was finished late in Novem-
ber, 1907, and the field route was then abandoned. In May, 1904.
before any regular cars ran, a test was made with one of the
large passenger cars well filled with directors and officers. The
car went to Danboro and returned with a workman sitting on
the roof watching the trolle3\^ As it rounded the sharp curve at
the Grove place, going at a great rate of speed, the man was
thrown against a tree then to the ground breaking several bones.
Aaron Kratz and Harry Shoemaker were among the promoters.
This road too went into the hands of receivers in a short time.
It was in fact in the hands of receivers at two different times.
The length of this road from Doylestown to Easton is thirty-one
miles.
The Newtown trolley road, always out of order and called
the "Sunshine" trolley was built in 1902. It was very convenient,
though uncertain, for people living in Bristol and the lower end
of the county who were obliged to attend court, as there was no
direct train service to the county seat.-
While the track was being laid on Green street, Doylestown.
an open work-car was left by the workmen at Ashland street each
evening. Boys of the town would jump on this car, release it and
it would run down the steep hill to the Todd farm where they
would jump off and push it up the hill and repeat the trip. One
evening when it was heavily loaded and going at high speed it
jumped the track, struck a telephone pole snapping it oft'
like a pipe stem and scattering the boys in all directions. Some
were badly injured, and carry marks to this day. Others were
unconscious and helpless for a long time, while several had bones
broken. This put a stop to the night rides.
From 1896 to 1900 cars were chartered for evening picnics by
lodges, societies or private parties. Open cars were generally
used which were gaily decorated with strings of fed, white and
blue lights, and carried noisy parties to any point on the line,
returning at a given time. The cars made no stops and took on
no passengers. The custom died out completely by 1902.
1 The small wheel which comes in contact with the feed wire Is called a
trolley, and from that wheel the trolley car takes Its name.
2 This trolley road was abandoned and tracks removed in November, 1923.
PASSING EVENTS (PAPER NO. l) 327
Reaping. Down to 1889 Washington Radcliffe and William
A. Swain of Buckingham, mowed all their grass with a scythe
and all their rye, wheat, oats and buckwheat with a cradle.
Grain was tied with straw by hand. Grass was raked with a
hand rake and the flail was used for threshing all grain until the
autumn of 1888 when, on account of the illness of W. A. Swain,
William Sine of Lahaska, who had a traveling thresher, run In-
horse power, came and threshed the grain. This was the hrst
time a threshing machine was used on the place. Because the
farms and barns were small these customs had been continued
long after the advent of machinery.
Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Neff, natives of Germany, who lived at
Spring Valley, reaped all their grain with a sickle as late as 1890.
The writer watched Mrs. Neff reap wheat with a sickle on July
4, 1887, in the field on the left as you ascend the hill back of
Stevers mill. Mr. Neff was a cooper and could be seen anv
autumn day fixing over old cider or vinegar barrels in front of
his barn at Stevers mill.
Hav-p.aileks. Edward H. pjlackfan of Solebury. informed me
that he owned and used in 1890, an old Ertle-Victor hay-
bailer, called a half circle, continuous press run by two horses
in a half circle. He believes this was the first portable hay press
used in middle Bucks county. Before that date hay was either
hauled to Philadelphia market or to large hay pressing houses.
built at railroad stations where it was pressed and shipped away
in box cars. In 1895 George Brown brought a portable hay-bailer
to the Edward H. Williams farm near Centreville, where the
writer was then living, and bailed the hay as it came from the
barn. Several farmers nearby drove in to see the process as it
was new at the time.
Silos. Edward H. Blackfan also advises me that Eugene Pax-
son, above Lumberville, built the first silo known here. It was
a square pit built of stones, like a cistern, about twenty feet deep
and was certainly used in 1880. Green cornfodder was cut and
the pit filled, but it was not a success because the ensilage spoiled
in the corners. The word silo was used for some time before
many knew just what the process of making ensilage was like
or how it was used. In 1898. when the Dovlestown-W'illow Grove
328 PASSING EVENTS (PAPER NO. l)
trolley road was started, passengers noticed two high, round,
windowless towers near the barn on the Paul Valley Farm near
Neshaminy and although many asked what they were for, no
one could give a satisfactory answer until one day a stranger
said they were silos, a new idea that seemed to come in from the
west. This shows they were not generally known at that time
but by 1905 a good many farmers had them.'' They would club
together and order perhaps fifty or more so all could be sent at
once. When they arrived at the station, the farmers would as-
semble from all directions, sort out and load their pieces of silo,
which were of wood, have dinner at the Railroad House and a
lively time, at that, after which, a long string of teams w^ould
form and pass like a parade through the town on the way home.
These were silo frolics and continued until about 1915. The
hollow tile silo came into use about 1916 although there are not
many at the present time (1921) but they will probably replace
the old wooden ones entirely. When built they look very old,
mysterious and attractive. The first ones noticed by the writer
were built near Solebury Mountain in 1917, two near Wycombe
in 1918 and one on the Albert Larue farm near Doylestown in
1918, to replace a wooden one.
Gasoline Engines. Mr. Blackfan informs me that the first
portable gasoline engine used in Solebury township, and probably
the first in middle Bucks county, was sold by Mr. Blackfan to
Hugh Michener of Solebury, in 1900. It was marked "The Olds,
Type E," made by the father of R. E. Olds, the automobile manu-
facturer, and was used for threshing, grinding feed, pumping
water, sawing wood, etc., and was still in running condition in
1920. Mr. Blackfan believes the Olds was the first gasoline
engine built in the country and certainly the first used in this
county. By 1910 it had largely replaced the horsepower and
steam engine on farms where these had been used, as well as
supplying power to many shops, pump houses and some factories.
Tractor Plows. The first tractor and plow used in Bucks
covmty was bought by Hugh Michener, west of New Hope, in
Soleburv township, in 1910. It was manufactured in Blue Bell,
z Dr. B. F. Packenthal. Jr.. advises me that he was the first to build a
silo in upper Bucks county, having built one in 1891, on his farm in Durham
township. It attracted the attention of many farmer.s and others for miles
around who went to inspect it.
PASSING EVENTS (PAPER NO. l) 329
Lancaster county, Pa., and was known as the Shirk Tractor
Plow, having a single cylinder gasoline engine, propelling itself
and answered for harrowing, rolling and other purposes. Ed-
ward H. Blackfan of New Hope, was the agent for this tractor.
Blue Bell was the first trading-post where cattle were hrought
from the west and sold to dealers in the east.
The first field plow operated with a tractor, seen by the writer,
was on the farm on the left as you ascend Crawfords Hill going
south, below Bennets Corner, in the autumn of 1917. Frederick
Blair Jaekel owned and used one on the Glen Echo Farm at Pine
Run in 1918, since which time many have been in use in Bucks
county. In 1920 there were demonstrations of various makes on
several farms in the county.
Milkmen. The milkman of 1880 went about in an ordinary
wagon with one or two milk cans, a smaller vessel which he car-
ried into the house, shaped like a milk can but having a handle
like a bucket, with a long handled ladel inside reaching to the top
of the can. Sometimes the customers' empty kettle or pitcher
was waiting in a little box nailed on the fence at the gate or he
would go to the porch or back door, remove the lid, hanging it
on the ear of the kettle while with the long handled, dripping,
pint dipper he ladeled out the milk fresh from his own farm that
morning. He always gave an extra shallow dip at the end to
make up for any poor measuring. Cream and skim milk were
carried in smaller kettles. The milk had to be stirred up before
dipping so everybody got their share of cream. Sometimes he
had butter, eggs and cottage cheese, rhubarb and horseradish for
sale. Many a cat got its head fast in a pitcher sitting on a porch
and could not get away from it, some have been drowned in a
pint of milk. Frank Mann was one of these farmer milkmen.
In 1894 there were regular milk dealers who bought their milk
from farmers and did nothing else but deliver it. The same kind
of buckets, cans and dippers such as I have described, were used,
but a wagon, open on the sides as at present, was used in place
of the little market wagon of the farmer. Maurice Gunnagan
was a milkman of this type. Then in 1906 the quart and pint
milk-bottles came in and the old kettles and dippers disappeared.
We had just learned about microbes and bacteria and these bottles
were supposed to be sanitary and as the milk was put in them
330 PASSING EVENTS (PAPER NO. l)
fresh from the cow, each person felt they were getting their full
share of cream. Boxes held the bottles on the wagons and wire
racks were used to carry them to the kitchen as at the present
time. Fred Himmelwright was probably the first to use the bot-
tles in Doylestown. Horses knew which were the milkmens
customers and would zigzag across the street or follow him
along the route.
Butchering About 1890. In the autumn the farmer's pork-
barrel was nearly empty and with the coming of cold weather
the hog was fed on new corn nubbins until he became so fat he
could scarcely move or see. Preparations were then made for the
winter butchering. The women laid aside their usual work, took
up the kitchen carpet or put down another layer of old rag car-
pets over it. The men laid the wagon house door on two trestles
or on the old sled-runners for a scafifold near the barn and placed
a barrel at one end, tilted at an angle of 45 degrees to hold the
water for scalding. While the water was heating in wash boilers
on the stove in the outkitchen or in large iron kettles over the
open fire in the kitchen or often out doors, the butcher knives,
probably made of old files by a blacksmith, were given a final
whetting. In some cases large stones were heated in an open
fire and thrown into the barrel of cold water thus heating it. A
rope was tied around the pig's leg or with one of the iron hog
catchers on a pole (now shown in this museum), he was lead out
and killed by sticking a sharp knife in his throat. Some men
were better pig-stickers than others. The scalding water was
then emptied into the barrel and the pig ducked, first head then
tail end, which loosened the bristles so they were easily scraped
away with old dull com knives or, better still, with the sharp edge
of the disk or bottom of a wrought iron candlestick. Nearly all
these handsome candlesticks after serving their original purpose
for years descended from the kitchen mantel to the hog scafi'old
and this last usefulness alone saved them from the scrap heap.
Ashes were thrown in the water to help this process, hog hooks
and gambols were also used and later the hog was hung head
down in the wagon house, cut up into quarters, when cold, and
carried into the house. Hams, shoulders, jowls, chine, pork and
spare-ribs were put in the pork-barrel and covered with a brine of
salt, sugar and saltpetre, the latter giving the meat a reddish
PASSING EVENTS (PAPER NO. l) 331
tinge. The women ground sausage meat and stutTed it in entrails.
cloth bags or as late as 1890 it was formed like an ear of corn
and placed in clean new corn husks. Scrapple (pon-hoss) was
boiled, mince meat, lard and hogshead cheese were made. The
grease from the latter was removed and bottled and later used
to rub on the throats of children suffering with the croup.
Sometimes sausage was highly seasoned with sage, rolled in the
thin skin of the leaf -lard, smoked and hung from the cellar
rafters, boiled in the summer, sliced thin and served cold. The
best hams were those salted on a board, called dry curing. The
ham was weighed and a certain proportion of salt, sugar and salt-
petre rubbed into it. This was a method that some had no suc-
cess with as the salt was not properly rubbed in and the meat be-
came tainted at the bone. Whether cured in brine or on the
board the meat was smoked later, either in a barrel placed over
a smouldering fire or hung above the lintel beam in the chimney
of an open fireplace or in a smokehouse. Sassafras twigs and
leaves were supposed to produce a sweeter smoke than anything
else. After smoking the hams were wrapped in paper, sewed up
in muslin bags and packed away in barrels in a dry place to pre-
vent maggots (called "skippers") from getting into the ends.
By the time this work was done the whole family was pretty
greasy, though happy. The kitchen was then scrubbed up, the
tins polished with wood ashes and with a well filled pork-barrel,
enough to last a year, the big event of the winter came to an end.
Sometimes a beef was fattened and killed at the same time, part
of which was salted down or corned for use in the summer. This
butchering continued on the farm until 1900 at which time farm-
ers said it did not pay to raise hogs as large hog farms and pack-
ing houses in the west lowered the price in the east and so they
bought their hams, many of which were painted over with a rank
liquid in place of the old smoking, and pork took its place in the
country store with pasteboard boxes of breakfast food, canned
goods and evaporated fruit, bakers bread, factory made pies
and cakes, coffee ground and bagged for months, mince meat by
the bucket and lard by the pound, all of which had lessened the
duties on the farm but had "canned" the people, all of whom
lived day by day so that a farmer today would starve to death
in a blizzard if shut off from the countrv store, in about
332 PASSING EVENTS (PAPER NO. l)
two weeks. Meanwhile the old pork-barrel, once the pride of
every farmhouse, almost as necessary as the kitchen fireplace,
dried up and was taken to the orchard to serve as a chicken coop
until the staves fell in and the heavy iron hoops were sold to the
junk dealer. The smoke-house stands roofless or gone, the
butcher-knives have rusted on the top shelf of the kitchen closet
and the ham hooks, gambrels and iron candlestick-scrapers have
disappeared. Pig raising was revived about four years ago
thanks to the farm bureau which offered prizes to the boy or
girl in each district who could raise the largest pig in a given
time. The farmer again stocked up so we now have large pens
of pigs on almost every farm but the pork-barrel has not come
back as the farmer sells his hogs to the butcher and buys his hams.
In 1894 farmers were using a patented hog scalder which was
made of cast iron like a large bathtub, with a firebox under-
neath into which long sticks of wood were placed. The water
heated very quickly. One farmer in a neighborhood would buy
one and rent it to his neighbors. This replaced the scalding
barrel.
Fences. My information concerning fences is partly from per-
sonal observation, and partly from information given to me by
Mr. Edward H. Blackfan and Mr. William Watson of Mechanics-
ville. The earliest fences were probably the snake or worm
fences, so called on account of their zigzag shape, like the
wriggling movements of snakes and worms. These were built
of rough wood either round or of young trees, split in two and
laid several courses high and fortified by driving two pieces of
wood into the ground in the shape of an X over the crossed
joints, then laying two more courses in the notch of the X. The
zigzag shape prevented the fence from toppling or being pushed
over easily and as the rails were close together a good deal of
wood was required. At one time they were used to divide fields
and along roadsides but by 1888 they had been discontinued al-
most entirely except around woodlots or in northern Bucks
county where, at the present time, a few short stretches still re-
main. The post and rail fence, used contemporaneously was
more substantial but required more work in preparing and in
keeping in order. The posts were hand hewn, bored and cut
out for either three or four rails. These rails were split from
PASSING EVENTS (PAPER NO. l) 333
small chestnut trees and required dressing or shaving at the
ends SO they would fit into the mortised holes. Holes were dug
in the ground and the posts set, "when the Signs pointed down."
but all the same after the winter frosts they required resetting
and straightening. The drain on the forests was enormous and
many farm woodlots were completely used up. Another fence
was made of posts and rails sawed at the country sawmills as
late as 1896. The rails were nailed to the posts and covered with
a strip the width of the post and almost as high. A wooden
block an inch wider than the top of the post and strip was nailed
on at a slope and a fence of this kind was generally whitewashed.
In 1880 band wire came into general use. This was a thin band
of galvanized wire one-half inch wide and saw-toothed or
notched on both sides or edges and loosely twisted and. because
it was galvanized it lasted a long time. About eight years later
or in 1888 barbed wire came into general use. This was made
up of two strands of twisted wire with groups of sharp prongs
inserted a few inches apart. Not being galvanized it did not last
as long as the band wire but it kept cattle in the fields much
better. In 1888 William A. Swain ran a single row of barbed
wire along a dilapidated worm- fence and the cows would not
go near it. This was the first wire fence used on the place.
The use of wire fastened to the posts with galvanized staples
saved not only a lot of work but a good deal of wood which was
getting scarce. Nothing but posts were necessary and these could
be set farther apart. In 1895 a straight, round wire was made
which ran through a small hole in the center of the post but was
not much used as it required more work than stapling. The
Page fence, with horizontal and perpendicular wires forming a
mesh one foot square, came into use about 1905 together with
other wires and about this time there was a law preventing the
use of barbed wire along the road; There is a growing tendency
all over the county to do away with fences of every kind both in
the country and village. Alo;ig the rocky ridges of Hilltown.
Plumstead and Buckingham townships, a good many neat stone
walls were built when the land was cleared. These were set up
dry, or without mortar and when once built required no further
attention. Whole farms were divided with stone walls which.
lasting a hundred years or down to 1900 were torn down, and
the stones hauled to a stone-crusher and. used for macadam roads.
334 PASSING EVENTS (PAPER NO. l)
Pianos and Organs. Down to 1887 there were cottage organs
in many country homes. Some of the more prosperous farmers
had old square pianos standing on massive cabriole legs that
required four men to move them and took up a lot of room. In
1876 Steinway & Son of New York, built thirteen low upright,
rosewood pianos. The keyboard was supported, not on slender,
straight columns as at the present time, but on smaller unshape-
ly, cabriole legs like those on the old square pianos, showing the
first step from the old square to the upright. One of these is
now owned by the writer. In 1887 Miss Hetty A. Walton bought
an upright piano, probably the first in Centreville or nearby, and
it was considered such a novelty that some of the Hughesian
school children went in to see it. The cottage organ is no longer
sold or used and the old square piano sells very cheap and mostly
for the fine wood used in it. A great many upright pianos are in
use since 1900 and pianolas were attached to a number of pianos
by 1904. These were screwed to the front of the piano and
little felt covered hammers struck each key when a perforated
music roll was placed in the pianola and made to revolve by
working foot-pedals. This was very complicated and soon got
out of order. It could not be removed without a good deal of
trouble and any person able to play the piano itself was deprived
of its use. In 1915 a new arrangement came into general use re-
placing the old upright piano and the pianola. This was the
player piano, exactly like the upright and could be played by a
person or, by simply lowering a panel, inserting a music roll and
dropping foot-pedals it would by some internal arrangement, pro-
. duce mechanical music without striking the keys. This could be
adjusted in a minute and there are a good many in use at the
present time.
Clothing. In 1887, country boys went to school in leather
boots, mittens, pulswarmers, tippets of gaudy colored woolen,
knit at home, and little round earbobs that dropped down from
the inside of the cap. Their clothes were home made and showed
patch on patch, not always the same color. Girls wore heavy
calf-skin shoes, calico dresses and little percale aprons, woolen
caps in winter and sunbonnets in summer. There were few um-
brellas, rubber boots or rubber shoes and the row of overcoats
hanging in the vestibule smelled strong of woodsmoke, fried
PASSING EVENTS (PAPER NO. l) 335
ham, turnips and cabbage, as nearly every one at that time lived
in the kitchen, in winter. Factory made shoes and ready made
clothing, that cost but little, came into general use in 1895 and
changed all this.
Gypsies. Numerous bands of gypsies could be seen each spring
as late as 1900. after which time they disappeared almost com-
pletely and two or three summers may now pass without one
band appearing. On a very sultry Saturday afternoon in August,
1889, the writer saw a large band traveling from Doylestown to-
wards Centreville. They stopped at the foot of Burnt House
Hill just as the bright afternoon was suddenly darkened to twi-
light by inky-black clouds that were carried at a great rate by a
terrific wind. The thunder and lightening was terrible but some-
thing more than this seemed to affect the gypsies. One of them
ran to the top of the hill and beckoned the others to follow,
which they did. the horses galloping up the steep hill, into W. A.
Swains open woods. A little wedge tent was quickly put up,
trenches dug on the sides, the horses were hoppled with ropes
and turned loose just as a terrible downpour of rain completely
shut out everything and caused lamps to be lit in all the houses.
An hour later when the evening sun again shone it was learned
that in the heart of the storm with its terrible thunder and
lightning and inky blackness a gypsy child had been born in the
little tent. On Sunday (the following day), the women told for-
tunes while the men traded horses. A large crowd gathered be-
cause this was no ordinary band of gypsies. There were at least
fifteen large decorated wagons, several plain ones taken in trade,
and fifty or more horses, several men and as many women. The
king or chief wore plumb-colored corduroy trousers, a plumb-
colored waistcoat with gold and colored braid, gold-braided belt
and a pointed broad-brimmed green hat. His word was law and
the wagon he slept in was wide and high with little colored glass
windows on either side of the drivers seat and in the doors at the
rear. The outside was paneled and gaily painted. Inside there
was a long comfortable bunk or bed and on all the interior panels
were either painted landscapes or mirrors. The sheets, as well
as the pillow-cases, had rufiles on them. This wagon was dif-
ferent and finer than the others and used only by the king or
chief who drove the finest horses but did not care for them or
336 PASSING EVENTS (PAPER NO. l)
hitch them up himself. The man who looked after the horses
had a very long flexible whip of black leather that tapered from
the end of the handle to the tip of the lash and the whole thing
seemed to be in one piece. When he w-riggled it like a snake it
produced sounds like a pack of exploding fire-crackers or, hold-
ing it high over his head and giving it a quick twist it would
crack like a pistol causing every horse to look up no matter how
often he did it, much to the admiration of boys and some
horsemen. The woods was not a good camping place as it was
on the top of a hill and far away from water, so on the following
day they drove away. All of them spoke English. Mrs. Swain,
out of fear, sold them all her butter, eggs, milk, and many chickens
which they paid for in gold while they stole all her sweet corn
and some field corn and as many potatoes as they needed be-
sides pumping the well dry.
On a chilly spring day in 1889 a band of gypsies passed down
the Doylestown-Centreville pike and stopped at Rebecca Swain's
house. A child, two years old, entirely naked, was lifted out of
the wagon by a gypsy woman, carried into the house where it
was fixed up with odds and ends of children's clothing. By the
time they reached Otts Hotel, in Centreville, a mile away, the
same child was again naked and the women of Centreville fvir-
nished more clothing. It was learned later that it had been
clothed at Mrs. Frankenfields at Mechanics Valley, and by the
time the band reached Pineville the child probably had a larger
and more varied wardrobe than any person in the county.
Gypsies generally camped on Andersons flats on the north
side of Buckingham Mountain, on the Mann farm and Gypsy
Lane near Doylestown. In 1919 a band spent two weeks in the
woods south of Pools Corner. In ]May, 1918, the writer saw
gypsies with two wagons camped along the road between Easton
and Bethlehem, there was no woods along this built up highway.
Their wash was drying on a wire fence along the road and they
were cooking breakfast over a wood fire.
On Saturday morning, October 16, 1920, a band of gypsies
came down to Doylestown from Easton, Pa., and were held here
by the police who had received word from the police department
in Easton to detain them for some misdeeds committed there
until an investigation could be made. The usual red shirts,
PASSING EVENTS (PAPER NO. l) 337
sparkling jewelry and lots of babies were in evidence but the old-
fashioned gypsy wagons were missing and in their place were
large, high-powered automobiles, a seven passenger Packard, a
Pierce Arrow, a Winton six, a Chandler and a Studebaker and
as the usual string of horses for trading was out of the question
with these fast traveling motors they had given up their chief
means of support. The band, about fifty in number "parked"
not "camped" in the rear of a Doylestown garage but the two
women who were w^anted by the Easton police did not arrive with
the band. They, evidently suspecting trouble, had motored off
on a side road intending to rejoin the band later. All disappeared
the same day. When a gypsy abandons his gayly decorated wagon
and string of horses the charm is indeed broken.
The organ grinder and monkey left us before 1905. Clock and
umbrella menders, dancing bears, bag-pipers and the scissor
grinder with his little tinkling bell have disappeared since 1900.
The Mercantile License law ruined the country peddler and the
peculiar cry of the rag. bone and rubber man, who traded cheap
Trenton made crockery for old scrap is no longer heard. The
Russian Jew, residing in almost ever^' town since 1900. has
combed the country of all scrap iron and a lot of good iron,
copper and brass. Punch as well as Judy is dead. Lantern
slides of "Ten Nights in a Bar-Room," generally shown in
country churches by the W. C. T. U., went out of fashion before
1890, and "Uncle Tom's Cabin" has been crowded out of public
halls by moving picture shows and is seldom seen. The medicine
doctor with his liniment, pills, salve and free show of "The
Dance of Death," "Peck's Bad Boy," etc., no longer comes to
the town hall or the public square.
Shad-e-o, the long drawn cry of the shad huckster, stopped in
1905 when the small run of shad in the Delaware and the large
run of motors carried customers to the fisheries who bought every
fish at from one to two dollars apiece instead of twenty-five
cents, as in 1890, so none were left for the hucksters.
No one seems to know what has become of the tramps that
traveled the Old York road in great numbers about 1886. Farm-
ers were afraid of tramps because there was always the danger of
setting fire to the barn, if they were allowed to sleep there, since
all carried pipes and matches, so some gave their permission to
338 PASSING EVENTS ( PAPER NO. l)
sleep in the bams provided they would hand over pipes, tobacco
and matches until morning. Between 1880 and 1900 a good
many barns were burned that were supposed to have been fired
either by tramps smoking, or out of revenge for having been
turned away without food or shelter. Judge Yerkes drove
them out for a time with heavy sentences so that Bucks county
was a spot to be avoided by them. That they left signs and
signals for their followers there can be no doubt as certain
farmers were black listed while others had steady customers.
Although no one seems able to say just what these signs were
unless small stones, placed on a gatepost, might be taken for one.
Few tramps had the courage to go to the residence of Mr. Wil-
liam R. Mercer, St., as they had from three to seven dogs run-
ning loose, and a tramp hates a dog. But one with more courage
than the rest walked to the back door and met Mr. Mercer who
was not very sympathetic when tramps were around. Hoping
to make a favorable impression before asking for anything, he
looked around in an admiring way over the well-kept lawn and
then said, "Oh, this is a most melodious place," so amusing Mr.
Mercer that he went into the house and gave him a fine coat.
(Information of Dr. Mercer.) Another tramp and his wife came
to the same door and asked the writer for a coat as it was a
chilly rainy night. He got a good one and a hot supper. On
leaving the place the woman was heard to remark, "why didn't
you ask him for shoes too, why he was such a fool he would
give you anything." Some women living alone would have a
man's hat and coat hanging near the door to give a tramp the
impression that a man was around and Mrs. Amy Callendar of
Mechanics Valley, had two or three pitchforks in the house to be
used in case a tramp worked his way in. These were seen by
the writer in 1894.
Agateware, for cooking purposes, came into general use about
1890 and the old tin vessels, made by the country tinsmith, were
quickly discarded and with them the traveling tinker who with
his little charcoal furnace, acid, solder and soldering iron had
been a welcome caller because there were several pieces of tin-
ware to be mended no matter how often he came. They were
generally very talkative and boastful about their work. One was
so insistent on mending something that Mrs. Edward Williams
FIGUREHEAD OF CHIEF TAMMANY AT ANNAPOLIS 339
gave him a student lamp that needed a ring soldered in the bottom
of the deep, narrow oil tank. He had just declared that he could
mend anything man had ever made. After working for nearly an
hour, using up much of his solder and exclaiming every three
minutes, "well, that caps the cli-max," he was obliged to melt
away the solder that had nearly ruined the lamp, pack up his tools
and get away. Mrs. Williams remarked that it "had capped his
climax and he was not half as smart as he thought he was." He
made a very deep bow and passed on. In place of the above we
now have other things not so amusing. "Book and tree agents,
bond sellers, workmen's compensation inspectors, factory, child-
labor, boiler and fire, federal, state and municipal inspectors,
none of which agree but all worry us so that we may be happy.
Figurehead of Chief Tammany from the Old Ship-of-the
Line Delaware, 1820.
BY COLONEL HENRY D. PAXSON^ HOLICONG^ PA.
(Tohickon Park Meeting, June 18, 1921.)
THAT which I have to offer as a contribution to this after-
noon's entertainment is the presentation to the Bucks
County Historical Society of a picture of the Figurehead of
Chief Tammany, together with a brief sketch of this great Indian
and a few observations on the subject of figureheads. This fig-
urehead was taken from the old Ship-of-the-Line Delaware when
it was dismantled many years ago and now stands on the campus
of the Naval Academy at Annapolis.
The donor of this picture is Judge J. Willis Martin, of Phila-
delphia. We know Judge Martin as a distinguished jurist, as a
foremost citizen, and as the governor of that ancient and honor-
able organization "The State in Schuylkill," of which society the
renowned Tammany is the patron saint.
I take it that you will all be interested in anything pertaining
to this distinguished chieftain. Bucks county and this society
have a peculiar right in claiming him as their own. He was the
chief Sachem of the Lenni-Lenape Indians, the ancient owners
340 FIGUilEHEAD OF CHIP:F TAMMANY AT ANNAPOLIS
and occupiers of our soil at the time of Perm's coming. He ren-
dered most important service in directing his people in their
dealings with the proprietary government and his remains are
believed to repose on the banks of the Neshaminy in a grave
now in the keeping of the Bucks County Historical Society.
The most that we know of Tammany's personal character is
from the pen of the Moravian missionary, the Reverend John
Heckewelder. While Heckewelder was not a cotemporary, he
lived many years among the Delaware Indians and was familiar
with their traditions. He gives this word picture :
"The name of Tamanend is held in the highest veneration among
the Indians. Of all the chiefs and great men which the Lenape na-
tion ever had, he stands foremost on the list. But although many
fabulous stories are circulated about him among the whites, but little
of his real history is known. The misfortunes which have befallen
some of the most beloved and esteemed personages among the Indians
since the Europeans came amongst them, prevent the survivors from
' indulging in the pleasure of recalling to mind the memory of their vir-
tues. No white man who regards their feelings will introduce such
subjects in conversation with them.
All we know of Tamanend, therefore, is that he was an ancient Dela-
ware chief who never had his equal. He was in the highest degree en-
dowed with wisdom, virtue, prudence, charity, affability, meekness,
hospitality, in short with every good and noble qualification that a
human being may possess. He was supposed to have had an inter-
course with the great and good spirit, for he was a stranger to every-
thing that is bad.
When Col. George Morgan, of Princeton, in New Jersey, was, about
the year 1776, sent b}- congress as an agent to the western Indians,
the Delawares conferred on him the name of Tamanend, in honor and
remembrance of their ancient chief and as the greatest mark of re-
spect which they could show to that gentleman, who they said had
the same address, affability and meekness as their honored chief, and
therefore ought to be named after him.
The fame of this great man even extended among the whites, who
fabricated numerous legends respecting him, which I never heard, how-
ever, from the mouth of an Indian, and therefore believe to be fabu-
lous. In the Revolutionary war his enthusiastic admirers dubbed him
a saint, and he was established under the name of St. Tammany, the
Patron Saint of America. His name was inserted in some calendars
and his festival celebrated on the first day of May in every year."
Of Tammany's relations with the state, we have authentic ac-
counts. We know that by several deeds he conveyed to William
Penn as proprietor and governor, much of the land nov\^ com-
FIGUREHEAD OF CHIEF TAMMANY
From the Old Ship-of-the-Line Delaware, 1820
From a photograph made in 1920, in the collection of Colonel Henry D. Paxson,
of the original Figurehead on the grounds of the United States
Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md.
FIGUREHEAD OF CHIEF TAMMANY AT ANNAPOLIS 341
prising Bucks county. I have here copies of all of the Tammany
deeds. If you are the owners of any of the fair hills and valleys
of Bucks county, you will be interested because they belong to
your title. If you examine your old deeds, you may be fortunate
enough to trace them back to the patent from William Penn.
but beyond the patent are the deeds which Tammany made to
Penn, so that he is in reality a predecessor of your title.
The first deed is dated the "23rd day of ye 4th month called
June in ye year, according to ye English account, 1683" and in
it "Tamanen" conveys unto William Penn, all of his "lands lying
betwixt Pemmapecka and Nessaminehs Creeks, for ye considera-
tion of so much wampum, so many guns, shoes, stockings, look-
ing glasses, blankets, and other goods as he. ye said William
Penn, shall please to give unto me."
This deed seems to have been followed by another deed of the
same date, in which Metamequan joins with Tamanen in a grant
to William Penn. of the same lands. The receipt on the back
of this deed enumerates the articles received by Tammany and
Metamequan for the land conveyed to William Penn and which
has been roughly estimated to be about three hundred square miles.
5 p Stockings 10 Glasses
20 Barrs Lead 5 Capps
10 Tobacco Boxes 15 Combs
6 Coats, 2 Guns 5 Hoes
8 Shirts, 2 Kettles 9 Gimbletts
12 Awles 20 Fishhooks
5 Hatts 10 Tobacco Tongs
25 lb. Powder 10 pr Sissers
1 Peck Pipes 7 half Gills
38 yds. Duffills 6 Axes, 2 Blankets
16 Knives 4 handfull Bells
100 Needles 4 yds Stroud Water
20 handsful of Wampum
The next important paper was executed on the 15th of June,
1692, at Philadelphia, and in this. King Taminent and three other
kings, Tangorus, Swampes, and Hickoqueon, acknowledged that
they had received from the commissioners of the proprietors full
satisfaction for all that tract of land formerly belonging to Tami-
nent and others, which they parted with unto William Penn ;
the said tract lying between Neshaminah and Poquessing upon
the River Delaware and extending;- backwards to the utmost
342 FIGUREHEAD OF CHIEF TAMMANY AT ANNAPOLIS
bounds of the said province, and in it, they release the proprietor
and his heirs and successors "from any further claims, dues and
demands whatsoever, concerning the said land or any other tract
of land claimed by us from the beginning of the world to the
day of the date hereof."
The last deed from Tammany is dated July 5, 1697, and reads
as follows :
"We Taminy Sachimack and" Weheeland, my brother, and Wehe-
queekhon alias Andrew, who is to be king after my death, Yaqueakhon
alias Nicholas, and Quenameckquid, alias Charles my sons, for us our
heirs and successors do grant ... all the lands between Pemopeck
and the creek called Neshaminy . . . and extending in length from
the River Delaware so far as a horse can travel in two summer days,
and to carry its breadth according as the several courses of the said
two Creeks will admit, and when the said Creek do so Branch that the
main branches or bodies thereof cannot be discovered, then the tract
of land hereby granted, shall stretch forth upon a direct course on each
side and so carry on the full breadth to the extent of the length thereof."
The consideration in this deed consisted of "Twenty Match-
coats, Twelve White Blankets, Ten Kettles, Twelve Guns, Thirty
yards of Shirting Cloth, one Runlett of Poweder, Ten Barrs of
Lead, fforty yards of Stroud Waters, Twenty pairs of Stockins,
One Horse, fifty pounds of tobacco, Six dozen of pipes and
thirty shillings in cash." In this deed Tammany is styled "King
Taminy" and he appointed as his attorney to acknowledge and
deliver the deed, Lasse Cock, a Swede and Penn's interpreter.
As showing Tammany's moral character and the peace policy
he advocated for his people in their dealings with the Pennsyl-
vania proprietors, I would like to quote one paragraph from a
speech he made July 6, 1694, before the council at Philadelphia,
when the Iroquois wanted the Delawares to attack the settlers.
He said :
"Wee and the Christians of this river Have allwayes had a free rode
way to one another, & tho' sometimes a tree has fallen across the rode
yet wee have still removed it again, & keept the path clear, and wee
design to Continou the old friendshipp that has been between us and
you; and gives a Belt of wampum."
FIGUREHEADS.
We now come to the subject of this figurehead or bust of
Tammany, the picture of which is before you, and which leads
FIGUREHEAD OF CHIEF TAMMANY AT ANNAPOLIS 343
first to a few general words on the time-honored practice of
ornamenting ships.
In ancient times, when the mariner ventured timidly in his
frail bark on unknown waters, he placed on the prow of his vessel
a symbol or token signifying his dependence upon a spirit or
diety supposed to dominate the wind and the water. In the many
succeeding centuries, this emblem assumed various forms. In
the days of the Phoenician, they erected on their galleys some-
form of a marine-protecting diety; the Greeks had images of
Castor and Pollux; the Egyptians, the ram's head or a carved
lotus ; the Roman vessels bore the head of a lion, while the ancient
Norse battlecraft bore aloft the dragon or serpent's head on its;
way to the shore of Iceland and Greenland.
Coming down to more recent times, the period of the building
of our American navy, we find portrait busts of illustrious war-
riors or statesmen carved in wood, like the object this picture por-
trays. Today, if you walk along the Philadelphia water-front and
observe the outgoing and incoming vessels, you will find upon
the ship's prow a faint scroll, all that survives as a reminder of
those days when the navigator felt that the greatest of his crafts
could survive the elements only if he appealed to the forces of
the unknown world.
For almost half a century, one of the features and traditions",
of the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis has been this Indian:
figurehead, which has long stood on a stone pedestal faring Ban-
croft Hall. Strange to say, it has been erroneously called Po-
hawtan, King Philip, Uncas and Tecumseh, and only quite re-
cently was it authoritatively established that it was Tammany..
The proof of this is found in certain letters in the Navy depart-
ment, in the year 1821, copies of which I have here. The Hon..
V. VanDyke, of the United States Senate, in a letter dated Janu-
ary 5, 1821, directed the attention of Commodore John Rodgers
to the subject of Tamanend and suggested that as Tamanend was
the most distinguished chief of the Delaware Indians and his
name connected with the early history of our country, that his
bust would be an appropriate figurehead for the Ship-of-the-Line,,
Delaware then being built. The records show the specifications
of the figurehead as follows :
344 FIGUREHEAD OF CHIEF TAMMANY AT ANNAPOLIS
Bust of Tamanend, the celebrated Chief of the Delaware
Indians.
Drapery — a Blanket with a Belt, in which is a Tomahawk.
Over the left shoulder — a Quiver of Arrows.
One hand resting on a Bow, and the other Hand holding the
Calumet.
That which we see here is only a part of the statue, which the
records indicate as being nine feet in height.
Despite the fact that some of these proofs were brought to
public attention in a maratime journal, the error still seems to
persist and even to this day, if you approach one of the future
admirals of the navy and ask him the name of the portrait-bust
on the campus at Annapolis, he will tell you it is Tecumseh. They
all have a certain sentiment for the figurehead, as it is supposed
to have occult powers. The system of marking at the academy is
upon the basis of 4, the lowest satisfactory mark in any sub-
ject in the curriculm being 2 :5, and we are told that when these
middies are fearful that their examination papers would fail to
meet this minimum, they would slip away in the shadow of that
grim figure after dark and pray for the old Indian chief's favor
— '"the God of the 2 :5" as he is known.
SHIPS OF THE U. S. NAVY NAMED DELAWARE.
I have said this figurehead was taken from the old Ship-of-the-
Line Delaware. An extended inquiry among naval men and a
protracted search among public documents and records has
yielded some interesting information. There were five ships in
our navy by the name of Delaware.
Delaavare 1. Frigate, 321 tons, 24 guns, 180 men, built at Philadelphia
in 1776, under the direction of the Marine Committee, by order of the
Continental Congress, Dec. 13, 1775. Owing to the blockade of the
Delaware by the British fleet, she never got to sea, but took an active
part, as one of Commodore John Hazelwood's fleet in the engagements
in the Delaware, 1776-1777. Took part in the engagement near Red
Bank, N. J., under command of Capt. C. Alexander, May 8, 1776, and
in the destr^^ction of H. B. M. S. Merlin and Augusta, Oct. 22, 23,
1777. November 19, 1777, owing to the wind having died away the
Delaware was unable to pass the British fortifications below Phila-
delphia, and was set on fire to prevent her falling into the hands of
the enemy
Delaware 2. Ship, 321 tons, 20 guns, 180 men. Purchased in Phila-
FIGUREHEAD OF CHIEF TAMMANY AT ANNAPOLIS 345
delphia in 1798. Sold at Baltimore 1801, under the Peace Establish-
ment Act. Cruised in the West Indies during the Naval War with
France, 1798-99, commanded by Capt. Stephen Decatur, Sr.. made the
first capture in this war, off the Capes of the Delaware, June, 1798.
and later captured four other prizes.
Delaware 3. Line of battleship, named for the State of Delaware,
2,633 tons, 74 guns, complement, officers and men, 820. Commenced
in 1817 at Gosport (Norfolk) Navy Yard. Launched Oct. 21, 1820.
Cruised as flagship of the Mediterranean and Brazil Stations, 1828-
1844, when she was laid up in ordinary at the Norfolk Navy Yard.
Destroyed when the Union forces evacuated this navy yard at the com-
mencement of the Civil War (April 21, 1861). This line-of-battleship
originally had a figure of an Indian chief as a figurehead, which now
stands in the grounds of the U. S. Naval Academy.
Delaware 4. Paddlewheel steamer, 357 tons, 5 guns. Purchased in
1861. Sold Sept. 12, 1865. Very actively engaged on the coast of
North Carolina from 1861 to 1865.
Delaware 5. First class battleship, named for the State of Delaware.
Length 510 feet,' beam 85 feet. Tons 20,000. Built at the Newport
News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company, Newport News, Va.
Launched February 6, 1909. Battery 30 guns (2 anti-aircraft) ; 2 sub-
merged torpedo tubes. Attached to the Atlantic Fle&t, Squadron 3,
Division 5.^
In conclusion, it would be interesting to know something of
the one who carved this remarkable figurehead.
At the time when all ships bore their insignia, the art of wood-
carving developed in America to the highest standard. Of these
sculptors, William Rush stood foremost. He was the son of a
ship carpenter, born in Philadelphia in 1756 and died in 1833.
Of the examples of his work of which we have knowledge, I
will mention a few :
A figure of an "Indian Trader" dressed in Indian habiliments,
on the vessel William Penn excited great admiration in London,
while his "River God" as the figurehead of the ship "Ganges"
as it passed up that river on its way to Calcutta attracted the na-
tives as an object of adoration and of worship.
At the Masonic Temple in Philadelphia can be seen a remark-
able female figure symbolizing "Silence."
His figures of "Tragedy" and "Comedy," once owned by Ed-
win Forrest, are in the Edwin Forrest Actors' Home at Holmes-
burg. Possibly the most remarkable of his carvings is the fuU-
1 The Delaware No. 5 served throughout the Great War and was scrapped
under the provisions of President Harding's Disarmament Conference.
346 FIGUREHEAD OF CHIEF TAMMANY AT AXXAPOLIS
length figure of \A'ashington Avhich was first exhibited in 1815
and purchased in 1831 by the city for the sum of $500. It can
be seen in Congress Hall, Philadelphia.
Here is a newspaper clipping of the Pcu)isylz'ouia Journal of
November 23, 1791 :
"The art of carving, especially heads of ships, we may without
boasting say, is now brought to the greatest degree of perfection in this
city. A stranger walking along the wharves, must be struck with the
beautiful female figures of Peace, Plenty, Love, Harmony, Ariel,
Astronomy, Minerva, America, etc., etc., and also with the masculine
statues of American Warriors, Alexanders, Hannibals, Caesars, etc.,
etc., and amongst the rest of those heroes the bold and striking like-
ness of the President, on the General Washington, a ship which sailed
yesterday for Dublin, must give pleasure to every spectator. The artist
who executed this, we hear is Mr. Rush; and as we may allow sea
Captains to be judges, they are generally of the opinion that the carv-
ing of heads of vessels in Philadelphia is superior to any they have seen
in any part of the world."
While this figure of Tammany does not appear in the list of
Rush's known. works, it has been by some attributed to him, and
I believe that further investigation will establish beyond doubt
that this remarkable figurehead, the only idealization of the great
Indian Chief Tammany, is the work of the sculptor, Willianx
Rush.
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WORKED BY RUTH BRADSHAW, 1712
Loaned by Miss Mary S. Paxson, Carversville, Pa.
Bucks County Samplers.
BY MRS. WILLIAM R. MERCER, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Tohickon Park Meeting, June 18, 1921.)
WHEN I was first invited to say a few words to you on
the subject of samplers I felt that it was quite beyond
my powers. In the first place, I knew little or nothing
about the subject, had seen very few samplers and felt that I
could not judge their merits or demerits. Some weeks have
elapsed since then, and it has been my privilege to see many of
these quaint and interesting pieces of needlework, and to learn
a little about their origin, the materials with which they were
made, and above all to realize the human meaning that lies under-
neath all expression. I am more than glad I was asked to under-
take, I will not say this task, but this pleasure, not only to learn
what part the sampler has played in our early American history,
but also to get into touch with their owners and to see how they
have treasured these little squares, that are quite a chapter in
themselves of American handicraft.
These few words of preamble are to explain to you how I hap-
pen to be here, and to ask you not to expect too much from me.
This is not to be the result of profound research, it is only to be
an informal talk on a very charming form of needlework. I
shall only try to tell you what I have learned myself.
Before we speak of Bucks county samplers, or even American
samplers, I would like to say a few words on the subject in gen-
eral. I do not think that we shall be able to understand the
samplers that we see about us in our exhibition without going far
back and realizing that this work did not suddenly spring into
existence, but developed step by step.
Let us turn to the foundations : It is interesting to hear that
the first mention of a sampler occurs when Queen Elizabeth of
York, wife of Henry VII, in 1465, is recorded to have paid 8
pence for one all of linen to make an ensampler. Now let us
pause a moment and notice this word. Ensampler is the old
English for exampler, in other words an example, and in that
one word is contained the whole meaning of the early samplers.
348 BUCKS COUNTY SAMPLERS
We do not realize in these days of machine-made products
what a part needlework played in the olden days. Everything
was embroidered : dresses, underwear, furniture .coverings, above
all table linen and bed drapery were not only embroidered but
marked, and needlework was at once an occupation, a pleasure
and a relaxation enjoyed by old and young. Therefore, how to
preserve these stitches and patterns became an absorbing interest.
The first samplers are just what is expressed by the word
example. They are a dictionarj' of patterns. A tradition tells us
that Catharine of Aragon, wife of Henry VII I, taught the women
of Bedfordshire, in England, to embroider the very early ones.
That may or may not be so, but in any case it shows that the
interest existed in all classes.
Now, in those days, the samplers were long and narrow, in
shape very different from the later ones. The English hand
looms were oak, eight or nine inches wide. The sampler would
be accordingly narrow, and about one yard in length, and the
owner would keep it rolled up when it was not in use or on ex-
hibition. The very early ones were, usually all white, of linen
worked \vith linen thread. I only wish that I had with me some
of the lovely ones that are to be seen in the Metropolitan Mu-
seum in New York. They seem like cobwebs woven by fairies,
the pattern resembling Italian cut-work. The number of pat-
terns is endless on these early beautiful examples, and they ex-
press what they were meant to be, the record book to be handed
on to children and grandchildren, the dictionary of needlework.
It is interesting to note here that the earliest known dated
sampler is an English one dated 1643; beyond that we encounter
an entire blank, and yet samplers were written about by Shake-
speare and Milton, and were also deemed worthy of mention as
bequests. For instance in the will of Margaret Tomson, of Lin-
colnshire, England, in 1546, she says "I give to Alys Pynsbeck,
my sister's daughter, my sampler with semes".
Being merely pattern records, however, these early samplers do
not have the decorative value of the later work.
Numerals and alphabets were added to these lace patterns after
a little. Then came texts and verses, and soon the sampler be-
came, not an example of embroidery stitches, but a chart on
which were set out varieties of lettering and alphabets. About
l^xST^T^/^lpjE^S^^^W^C^T^
\-^»-/ "■
WORKED BY MARY SHEEDS, 1806
Loaned by Mrs. Henry D. Paxson, Holicong, Pa.
^ i
(^rmit ihy gncioTj? name, to stand ^f
.S^As tke first effort of my fouthM amdt
Y 't-
JjAx^ wbil« my f in^er^ o'er t.kis canvass move/
':XEng,a|,e my tender heart to se«k thy love/ v
J/ With thy dsar children let me jbear a, p^rt ''^
Y^ And write thy name thyself upor. rfxj heartjf
Vlhe only amaranthine fiowr on c?rth V
'if t?
^■f Is virtue th'only lasUng treasure truth ]jj
t. Susa» . Mtgili
'"i **fe Newtown
WORKED BY SUSAX MACaLL, 1812
Loaned by Mrs. C. S. Atkinson, New Hope, Pa.
BUCKS COUNTY SAMPLERS 349
1700 it became possible to weave wider stripes and so we find
the samplers becoming wider and shorter.
A word now about foreign samplers, for we must not think
they were all produced in England. Samplers are found in all
European countries with England and Germany, however, lead-
ing the way. They can also be seen in France, Belgium, Holland,
Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy and Spain. You can also
find some that were made in the mission schools of India and I
have seen a Turkish one. All the continental samplers are made
of wider linen than English ones, and are usually done in brightly
colored silks. Most of them have inscriptions and almost all are
dated and the name of the worker is signed in full, with the ex-
ception of the German ones, where only the initials figure.
Now that we have learned a little about the origin and develop-
ment of the earliest samplers, let us turn to the first American ones.
The earliest one that we possess is in the Essex Institute, Salem,
Mass., and is the work of Ann Gower, the wife of Governor
Endicott. It is not dated, but must have been made about 1610,
that is, before she came to America. The second oldest, is also
in Massachusetts, the work of Loara Standish, daughter of Cap-
tain ]\Iiles Standish of Plymouth. It is only a little later in date
to that of Ann Gower. These are both long samplers, but the
end of the eighteenth century saw the passing of the narrow type.
About 1740 the border began to creep in, and soon became a
frame for birds, flowers, verses, texts and all sorts of designs.
Now, as this is called a paper on Bucks County Samplers. I
must tell this Bucks comity audience, all that I have discovered
about the very lovely samplers which abound here. I only wish
that I had begun this research years ago instead of weeks ago.
However, I have had very much co-operation from the owners
of the samplers, without whom we could never have had this
exhibition. I have found on all sides unparalled generosity and
a desire to help. When we first thought of an exhibition a friend
said to me, "No one will feel like lending these lovely old sam-
plers", but I have not only found a willingness to lend when they
were asked, but I have been, even called on the telephone by
generous friends who have been glad to loan them.
Of course the samplers in the county were made mostly by
either English or German forbears, and I was much pleased to
350 BUCKS COUNTY SAMPLERS
see how many interesting and beautiful ones were scattered
about. The materials are a coarse linen, which had a great vogue
at that time, often stained yellow.
Sometimes canvas was used, particularly when the alphabet
was done in cross stitch. Very often we find a fine bolting cloth
as it was called, silk texture that had been dipped in gummed
water, note the two examples made by Mary and Rachel Collins
in 1810. That offers a very fine and beautiful background for
dainty patterns. We can find practically all the sampler stitches
of other countries reproduced in our Bucks county samplers,
cross stitch, satin stitch, tent-stitch, eyelet-stitch, and even
French knots. The designs are also the same as on the English
ones. We find the same huge birds sitting on small trees, the
mourning trees with branches turned down, and the tree of life
with branches joyfully turned upward. Then the baskets of
fruit appear again and again, also the rose, the strawberry and
the pink. The American linen was usually coarser and rougher
than the English or continental linen. A material of wool and
linen called "tammy cloth" was also used. As the moths soon
discovered it, many beautiful samplers were partially destroyed.
The silk or thread was of course home-dyed. In this relation
I want you to notice Maria Thomas' sampler, her mother raised
the silk worms, made the silk and dyed it at home, and Maria
worked the sampler. Cochineal, logwood plant a genesta, indigo
and saffron were among the substances used for that. In some
of the New England samplers a certain kinkiness in the silk is
explained by its having been supposedly brought over from the
Orient by the sea captains. The oldest sampler on exhibition is
dated 1712 and is worked on linen in black cross stitch; notice
here that the earliest ones were always cross stitch, the satin
stitch came later.
One of our most interesting samplers is lent by Mrs. Henry
D. Paxson. It was made by Hannah Sheed and dated 1806. The
maker was descended from the Swedes who settled in Pennsyl-
vania in the seventeenth century, and it is a beautiful example
of needlework.
Another interesting Bucks county sampler has been loaned
by the Bucks County Historical Society. It is dated 1810 and
was made by Martha Lacey, the daughter of General Lacey, the
»
^^. ^
AD cibka of lovt
^%
A.
>
«|t^
WORKED BY RACHEL BROADHURST, 1812
Loaned by Mrs. John Rockafellow, Forest Grove, Pa.
^.^.5^^
\^^
/'
r^m^ f Ji=5
"T-
^
\
^^ g^ ^^ i^^/3^^, t^-^^/-/^'
r^
t^^
^%-
WORKED BY SUSAX SCHLEIPPER. 1816
Loaned by Hon. Henry S. Punk, SpringtOM^n, Pa.
BUCKS COUNTY SAMPLERS 351
hero of the battle of the Crooked Billet, near Hatboro. Still an-
other, dated also 1810, was loaned by the same society, and made
by a member of the Stewart family, then hving near New Galena.
It has a beautiful motto, which I quote :
If I am right, thy grace impart
Still in the right to stay,
If I am wrong, oh. teach me how
To find the better way.
I want to draw attention to Mary D. Richardson's darned
sampler, dated 1821. It is the only example of that kind of work
that we have on exhibition. The colors are in a very fine state
of preservation. Some times these samplers were really darned,
and the material cut from underneath, but in this one the needle
is simply run under the threads. The inscription says it was made
at Attleborough School, now Langhorne.
Acrostics were much in vogue a hundred or more years ago.
AVe have only one example here, signed E. S., dated 1834.
Then, those who are historically interested in our county will
enjoy the delightful picture made by Susan Geary in 1832 of
Fallsington School. It was probably done when she was a pupil
there and was a monument to her industry and perseverance.
A very fine sampler has been loaned, made on tammy cloth, that
combination of wool and linen that has been mentioned. It was
made by Rachel Broadhurst in 1812 and has a very great variety
of design. It is the only one we have on which the unicorn is
depicted, evidently an heritage from English ancestors. It is in
a very fine state of preservation.
Another favorite form of sampler was the extracts, as they
were called, that is, verses enclosed in a frame composed of a
single line of black stitch. We have shown here three such ex-
amples. Two of our very best and oldest samplers are Ann
Wady's, dated 1746. and the one finished by Ann Pierce in 1742.
They are a beautiful example of fine stitchery and are both done
in cross stitch. They are both little gems as is the one made by
Sara Magill in Newtown in 1819. This last is worked on bolting
cloth laid upon gold paper, producing a very lovely effect.
I only have time to mention three more of our Bucks county
samplers, that of Ann Bessonette. done in the eighth year of her
age, in 1780. Notice particularly the coaches drawn by black
352
BUCKS COUNTY SAMPLERS
ponies. The whole execution of this sampler is very fine and the
quaint design most unusual. Bessonette we believe to be an old
Hugenot name from the lower part of the county. The French
Hugenots were great sampler-makers. That of Sarah Richard-
son, dated 1825, with its fine strawberry border, gives a very
charming effect. The strawberry, by the way, was a favorite
design and we find it again and again. The inscription is very
quaint it is called "Friendship", and says :
And what is friendship but a name,
A charm that lulls to sleep,
A shade that follows wealth or fame
And leaves the wretch to weep.
The last sampler of which I shall speak is by Elizabeth Mere-
dith dated 1788. A beautiful border of yellow flowers encloses
the Lord's prayer in verse. For daintiness, execution and de-
sign it is as lovely an example as any that we have.
I would like to mention each one of the samplers exhibited here
but time and space forbids. The whole county has come forward
with astonishing enthusiasm. I want especially to mention Miss
Eleanor Foulke, of Quakertown, to whom we owe the idea of
having this exhibition. She has worked untiringly and has beau-
tiful and interesting samplers from the northern part of the
county. One especially quaint was made in the year 1821 by
Susan Schleififer. The inscription runs :
When I am dead and in my grave,
And all my bones are rotten;
When this you see remember me.
Or I shall be forgotten.
I also want to draw your attention, to the various needlework
pictures. They are not samplers, to be sure, but we are very
glad to have them, as they were co-existent with samplers at the
beginning of the nineteenth century. They will repay close ex-
amination for their wonderful needlework.
It is interesting to discover when certain designs first came into
being. In 1710 Adam and Eve became popular and hundreds of
samplers reproduced the Garden of Eden. Amusing to relate,
our first parents were often attired in the fashions of the day.
Eve in hoop skirt and Adam in court dress. Here, owing to the
i/QA
S'^^S^^a
M.
^/ mkc.
WdllKKI) BY MAUY 1 ). KM 'H A 111 )S()N, ISlil.
Loaned by Mrs. Thomas L. Allen, Langhorne, Pa.
WORKED BY SUSAN GEARY, 1832
Loaned by Mrs. S. B. Farren. Doylestown, Pa.
BUCKS COUNTY SAMPLERS 353
kindness of Mr. Howell, of Germantown, we find in our exhibi-
tion Adam and Eve in full Quaker costume.
Another friend has allowed us to show her sampler, where the
Garden of Eden is represented, also the serpent seems to be
speaking to Eve, while Adam looks on. All the participants,
except the serpent are in the costume of the day, which was
about one hundred years ago.
From about 1777 to 1812 we find the map samplers, that were
supposed to teach at once the art of needlework and the science
of geography. They were outlined-stitches on linen, silk and
even satin, and were of course, inspired by the spirit of travel
and colonization, I wish I could have found one for exhibition.
I think that we are all struck by the extreme youth of the sample-
makers. The most beautiful and finished work was sometimes
accomplished by a child of nine, and very few of the samples
were done by any one older than fifteen years. For instance,
Maria Thomas in 1828 exclaims at the age of nine :
O, may my follies, like the falling trees.
Be stripp'd of every leaf by Autumn's wind;
May every branch of vice embrace the breeze,
And nothing leave but virtue's fruit behind.
In the first half of the eighteenth century the rise of Method-
ism gave popularity to various texts. The Lord's prayer and the
Epistles were often done in cross stitch, along with moral maxims
and texts, and it might interest this audience to hear how far back
some of the most common designs can be traced by listening to
the following : Adam and Eve, as we have said, began to be
seen in 1710; the alphabet, in 1643. The border enclosing a
sampler, in 1726; numerals, 1655. We inight go on indefinately
tracing the familiar figures, but it is evident that the sampler has
gone through four stages.
1. It was a record of design.
2. An example of handiwork.
3. A training for little girls.
4. A school room task.
There are very few books written about samplers, and not very
many articles. A splendid book on American samplers is about
to be published by two members of the Colonial Dames. That
354 BUCKS COUNTY SAMPLERS
society has been especially interested in samplers and has held
exhibitions at different times.
What a pity that this charming form of needlework is fast dis-
appearing. These bits of faded color appeal to us in a very
special manner. They speak of bygone days, of lives spent quietly
in home surroundings before the advent of the trolley car and
automobile ; what dreams were woven into these tiny stitches,
what thoughts were passing through the minds of those whose
busy fingers wove these designs? We shall not know, but we
can look at them with tenderness, and feel that perhaps little
Ellen Maria Odiorne, aged ten years old, was not wrong when
she wrote on her sampler in 1822 these words :
How various her employments, whom the world
Calls idle and who justly in return
Esteems that busy world an idler too.
Friends, books, her needle and perhaps her pen.
Delightful industry, enjoyed at home,
Could she want occupation who has these?
The following is a list of the samplers loaned to Mrs. Mercer.
She displayed many of them on the walls of the auditorium in
which the meeting was held. They were of special interest to
all, and assisted her greatly in illustrating her interesting paper.
PERSONS LOANING WHEN AND BY WHOM
SAMPLERS WORKED
Miss Marv S. Paxson, Carversville
S Ruth Bradshaw, 1712
( Composed by E. S., 1834
Mrs. Emlin Martin, Bristol Ann Pierce, 1742
Mrs. Eliza Hance, Newtown Ann Wady, 1746
\ Elizabeth Thompson, plate, 1748
Mrs. Helen Parry Fretz, Newtown \ Elizabeth T. Neelv, (b. 1805, d.
[ 1842).
Mrs. T. O. Atkinson, Doylestown Phoebe Schofield, 1760
Mrs. Horatio Beatty, Bristol
I Ann Bessonett, 1780
( Catharine Cabeen, 1819
Mrs. A. E. Levick, Quakertown Ann Laning, two, 1784 and 1794
Mrc TVlr^rv,^c T All T u f Aun Lanittg, two, 1784 -and 1794
Mrs. Thomas L. Allen Langhorne | ^^^^^ ^ Richardson, 1821
Miss Fanny Chapman, Dovlestown \ glif beth Meredith. 1786
^ ' - ^='-^^"- I Not given — Embroidered picture
Miss Marian Lyman, Doylestown Elizabeth Aleredith. 1788
Miss Emma James, Doylestown Polly Armstrong, 1798
Mrs. Richard Watson, Dovlestown \ \\^'Y Rodman, 1799
( Maria Thomas, 1828
Mrs. Penrose Roberts, Quakertown Margaret Penrose, 1799
»r-
^ "' ACEOh
Mmtw Charm-^ Kai^ thou j
And. Wirings iiot few?^
Eare Beauty onlktr Brox^
■ GodLme^s^s- too «
^^-ndfrowthY Sonil
Eadiar^t xxxith Lo^o^^
^■^^ E tef Ti&L Fea^ce thy Goal
Trea-^wed- froTO AJ>o^^e '^
Good friend thou art
Oh . one .^0 feir apd K md -
Oft Low may rlLLthy^Heart t
E>eeP FufitY thy Mmd >■ ^|
Co^YsPo^s-ed W E'S"
COMPOSED BY K. S., A. D. 1834
Loaned by Miss Mary S. Paxson, Carversville, Pa.
BUCKS COUNTY SAMPLERS
355
PERSONS LOANING
SAMPLERS
Mrs. Henry D. Paxson, Holicong
Mrs. William Tinsman, Lumberville
Mrs. Augustus J. Pickering,
Gardenville
Mrs. Emma Stapler Wright,
Newtown
Mrs. Charles Smith, Newtown
Dr. F. B. Swartzlander, Doylestown
Hon. Henry S. Funk, Springtown
Mrs. Edward Blackfan, New Hope
Miss Mary Bunting, Newtown
Mrs. Mary Armstrong, Doylestown
Miss Eleanor Foulke, Quakertown
Mrs. John Ely, New Hope
Miss Marie H. Radcliffe, Bucking-
ham
Mrs. George Ross, Doylestown
Mrs. John S. Rockafellow, Forest
Grove
Mrs. C. S. Atkinson, New Hope
Mrs. John Yardley, Doylestown
Mrs. Margaret Wiggins, Newtown
Mrs. Warner Thompson, Wycombe
Ad:rs. H. A. Todd, Doylestown
Miss Edith Newlin Fell, Holicong
Mr. George C.Worstall, Newtown
Miss Louisa B. Hill, Quakertown
Mrs. Lydia W. Thompson, Newtowi
WHEN AND BY WHO^[
WORKED
f Hanamell Canby, 1800
■I Ann Johnson, 1804
I Mary Sheeds, 1806
[Hannah Kelter, 1835
( Frances Fell. 1801
I Esther B. Fell, 1815
Mary Roberts, 1802
[Susanna Betts. 1804
I Marv Stapler, 7th. Mo. 1805
^ Elizabeth S. Jones, 1820
I Two pieces with alphabet, no
[ date
[ Martha Palmer Nancev, 1804
-i Martha Palmer, 1810
[Anna Bunting, 1818
j Name not given, 1803
} Abigail R. Swartzlander
5 Susan Schleiffer, (b 1804, d. 1900)
( Elizabeth Funk, two, 1844 and 1850
\ Eleanor Hughes, 1805
1 Hannah Gilbert. 1811
Rachel Woolston, 1806
Mary Moore, 1807
fjane Roberts. 1808
I Jane R. Mather, 1831
(Martha Betts. 1807
I Hannah Smith, 1830
Mary T. Burrows, 1810
Elizabeth Pawning. 1812
Rachel Broadhurst. 1812
Mourning Picture, 1812
5 Mary Yardley, alphabet, 1813
[Mary Yardley, (darned), 1819
Susan Magill, 1812
Elizabeth Warner. 1813
Ruth Cottman. 1813
Elizabeth W. Carey. 1850
Sarah Eastburn, 1815
j Esther B. Fell, 1815
(E. T., 1818
( Sarah Betts, 1817
I "Why is our food so very sweet
I Because we earn before we eat.
- Why is our wants so very few
Because we nature calls persue."
Marie E. Smith, 1824 — Aged 9
years
Mary Book. 1817
Patience Heston, 1820. age 16 yrs.
356
BUCKS COUNTY SAMPLERS
PERSONS LOANING
SAMPLERS
Mrs. Harold Gillingham, German-
town
Rev. J. B. Krewson, Forest Grove
Mrs. C. R. Nightingale, Doylestown
Mrs. Alfred Marshall, Langhorne
Miss Addie Buckman, Doylestovi^n
Mrs. A. M. Keys, Bristol
Mrs. Thomas L. Allen, Langhorne
Miss Helen Gilkeston, Bristol
Mrs. Edward S. Hutchinson, New-
town
Miss R. S. Tinsman. Lumberville
Miss Emma Trego Fell, Holicong
Mrs. S. B. Farren, Doylestown
Miss Ray Roberts, Quakerstown
Mrs. Frederick G. Le Roy Newtown
Miss Belle Van Sant, Newtown
Mrs. F. H. Fluck, Quakertown
Mrs. James Groff, Doylestown
Miss Louisa Buckman, Doylestown
Mrs. Arthur Leatherman, Doyles-
town
Mrs. H. W. Atkinson, Doylestown
Mrs. A. B. Sellers, Chalfont
[
Miss Laura Haines. Doylestown i
Mrs. Oliver Bergey, Doylestown
Mrs. William Opdyke, New Hope
Mrs. David Nyce, Doylestown
Miss Augusta S. Keim, Bristol
(
Bucks County Historical Society -{
WHEN AND BY WHOM
WORKED
\ Agnes Lukens, 1820
I Adam and Eve Pattern
S Jane Wallace, 1820
I Rebecca Wallace, 1827
Mary VanHorn, 1821
Mary Mathers, 1823
Mar\' Jamison, 1823
Elizabeth Marshall, about 1825
Sarah Richardson, 1825
Elizabeth Kinsey, 1825
Rachel Childs, 1825 aged 22 years
Rebecca W. Small, Sep. 20, 1824
Rebecca Thorne, 1827
Susan Geary, 1832
Martha C. Roberts, 1834
Delia A. Hopkins, 1834
(Jane Willet (Van Sant) 1837,
I aet. 11
Mary Shupp, 1840
Louisa Cadwallader, 1841
Louisa Buckman, 1848
Two samplers, 1852
Magdalene S. Parry, two samplers
Mary Betts
[ Lydia Ashbridge Way
\ Ann Way
[ Sydney JefiFeris Way
Not given
Not given
Two samplers, no data given
Not given
Westtown School, 1802
Martha Lacey, 1810
[Stewart, E. S., 1810
History of Church's School in Buckingham Township.
BY MRS. CLAYTON U. (ANNIE MEREDITH) FRETZ. SELLERSVILLE. PA.
(Tohickon Park Meeting-, June 18, 1921.)
WE naturally take a great interest in the schools we at-
tended in the early years of our lives, when impressions
are the most indelible, and we like to compare the pres-
ent with the past.
We learn that Buckingham township was fortunate in the
quality of her early schools. Thomas Smith gave a lot of ground
whereon the "Red School House" was built. "Tyro Hall" was
erected in 1790. The "Hughesian Free School" in 1811, and the
"Martha Hampton and Hannah Lloyd Boarding School for
Girls" in 1830. Another one is "Church's School", which is lo-
cated nearly four miles east of Doylestown.
Richard Church produced at Buckingham Monthly Meeting of
Friends, 9th month. 4th day, 1729, a certificate from Ireland dated
2nd month. 4th day, 1729. He was born in Ireland, but was of
English ancestry. He married Sarah Fell in 1735 and settled on
the northwest corner of the tract of two hundred sixty-five
acres patented to him by John Penn, Thomas Penn, and Richard
Penn in 1741, having had possession before the patent was issued.
It was part of the five hundred acres laid out by Cutler in his
resurvey, to the proprietaries in accordance with orders given
to lay out that quantity in each township not fully taken up.
Church lived there until his death in 1822. He had nine children,
three sons, Moses, John, and Joseph, and six daughters. Of the
sons only one, Joseph married, and he and Moses lived on the
old plantation and all are buried in a little walled graveyard back
in the fields not far from the schoolhouse.
Some descendants of the sisters and daughters of Joseph
Church still reside in the neighborhood but the name of Church
is extinct in that locality. Sarah Church, eldest daughter of
Joseph, married Jonas Fell, and they were the grandparents of
Dr. John A. Fell of Doylestown. His second daughter, Eleanor,
married Moses Bradshaw, but thev removed to Indiana. His
358 HISTORY OF church's SCHOOL IN BUCKINGHAM TOWNSHIP
third daughter, Elizabeth, married Benjamin Carhsle, and they
have descendants hving in the neighborhood.
About the year 1801 Joseph Church leased a small plot of
ground to his neighbors, for the establishment of a school, and
entered into the f ollo\ying agreement :
An agreement made and entered into by us the subscribers for the
purpose of building a schoolhouse on a piece of land belonging to
Joseph Church and laying by the Doylestown road, and bounded by
land belonging to Joseph Fell on the southwest side for which land I,
Joseph Church engages to give a least in trust to such persons as shall
be hereafter appointed to take one, for the use of a school for the term
of ninety-nine years, and have agreed to build a house of stone and
laid in lime and sand mortar, to be twenty feet wide and twenty-six
feet long, to be one story high and have appointed John Bradshaw and
Isaiah Michener to employ workmen, provide materials, and superin-
tend the building the house. And we also bind ourselves our heirs
and executors to pay in money, labor or materials, such sums as are
annexed to our names, unto the aforesaid John Bradshaw and Isaiah
Michener. We further agree that if the first subscription should prove
insufficient to complete the house we will advance in proportion to our
subscription, and if there should be any over plus it shall be returned
in the same proportion.
This lease w^ith the names of the subscribers and the several
amounts annexed was found to be insufficient, as only seventy-six
pounds, nine shillings and six pence of the required sum had
been subscribed. It was again circulated and the necessary
amount was realized, one hundred and nine pounds, five shillings,
and four pence; equivalent to $291. 37j^.
The increased subscriptions were made by the same twenty-
nine persons whose names were :
Thomas Michener, John Bradshaw, John Fell, Elisha Mich-
ener, Cornelius Shepherd, Jonathan Fell, Jr.. John Shaw, Thomas
Fell, Samuel Gillingham, Samuel Gilbert, Robert Waker, Joseph
Church, Isaiah Michener, Meshack Michener, Jr., William
Sands, Jonas Fell, Asa Fell, Jr., Samuel Delp, Abraham Myers,
Jonathan Large, John Hughes, Benjamin Cadwallader, Thomas
Fell, Meschack Michener, Sr., Joseph Shepherd, Jesse Dean,
Jesse Wilson, George Delp, Jonathan Fell.
In due course of time the house was built, and the carpenter
presented his bill, which was paid, and the following receipt given :
HISTORY OF church's SCHOOL IN BUCKINGHAM TOWNSHIP 359
Alarch 6, 1804, Then received of John Bradshaw four pounds, ten
shilhngs, eight pence, being the full demand, I say received by me.
($12.07), William Sands.
In order to obtain money to purchase a stove for the school-
house another subscription Hst was circulated among the patrons,
as follows :
"We the undersigned subscribers do agree to purchase a new stove
and pipe suitable for the schoolhouse, and to pay the several sums here-
unto annexed unto John Bradshaw and Samuel Gillingham for the
purpose for purchasing said stove, and completing it for use.
The amount subscribed was $24.33.
As soon as this was accompHshed the school was ready for the
scholars and the teacher, but where can we find a record ot
their names ?
The present secretary of the township school board, William B..
Carver, gives this information : "The oldest record I find in the
minute book of 1842, is an order drawn in favor of George Wag-
ner for teaching one hundred and sixty-three days at Church's
school, the sum of $181.66.
It is a noteworthy fact that children having poor parents
were not deprived of the means of getting an education, but
were educated at the county expense. The assessors of each
township were required to report the names of the children of
parents who could not afiford to pay for their edvication. The-
bills were sent to the county commissioners and were then paid..
In 1829 this amounted to $3,589.97 for the county, and was-
published in the Bucks County Republican, and Anti-Masonic-
Register, January 26, 1830.
In the early history of our country, schoolhouses were fre-
quently built in close proximity to churches, and were maintained
by the church members, but Church's school was located at some
distance from any church or meeting house and was accordingly
used for all purposes needed in the neighborhood, social, educa-
tional and religious. We learn that in 1843 a meeting was held
there to celebrate Washington's birthday, at which Mr. John
Rogers delivered the address. In the same year a debate was
had on the "Woman Question",' an account of which was writ-
ten by Mrs. George M. Child, then residing near Sands' Corner
1 The daughter of Geoi-ge M. and Mary Thomas Child married Dr. Joseph
B. Walter. See page 84 ante.
360 HISTORY OF church's school in BUCKINGHAM TOWNSHIP
and published by Mr. Sellers in the Olizr Branch. The earliest
known minister who occasionally preached there was the Rev.
Mr. Magoffi.
There are several interesting items culled from an old letter
of 1837. One is, that Doylestown had four free schools at that
time, and it is quite probable that the older pupils of Church's
school district went there, as they do now, to enjoy opportunities
for higher education. It is a fact also that male teachers were
most in demand. In 1843 a young woman wished to teach in
Centreville, but the employers preferred a male teacher and there-
for chose Mr. Richard Watson, who later became judge of the
Bucks county courts. After a few years this condition was
changed. An elderly woman upon a certain occasion made the
remark, that her first teacher was a woman- and she was so kind
that she ever remembered her with a great deal of affection.
But whoever they were, their influence for good was of the
greatest to the generation in which they lived.
All honor then to our ancestors, who by their perseverance
and industry established our country schools.
An explanation is due to account for the old John Bradshaw
papers. His daughter, Phebe, married Hugh Meredith, who lived
many years on a farm between Sands' Corner and the road to
Centreville. After his death these long treasured letters, ac-
counts, settlements of estates, etc.. were inherited by a great-
granddaughter, the writer of this paper.
2 The teacher referred to was Jane Robinson, who married Robert Thomp-
son. The first teacher at Sandy Ridge school in Doylestown township, was
Hannah Yarnal Meredith, who married S. S. Gregory of Ohio.
DIPNET DESCRIfJED ON PAGE 366
Old Methods of Taking Fish.
BV WARREN FRETZ, DOVLESTOWX, PA.
(Tohickon Park Meeting. June 18. 1921.)
IN this paper I will endeavor to cover some of the old methods
of fishing, giving special attention to the older methods which
are at present obsolete, and have been for many years. The
method most generally used for securing fish for food was spear-
ing or gigging. This was an easy way to secure large quantities,
as the stream conditions were exceptionally favorable for spear-
ing. Especially was this true of Tohickon Creek and its smaller
tributaries. Deep Run, for instance. Tinicum Creek was also an
ideal stream. These streams run shallow, with many pools and
ripples and are adapted for this form of fishing.
While spearing was mostly done at night, it required good fa-
cilities for artificial light, and the first item I shall take up is that
of light.
The first lights used were the pine knot and "fockel." The
pine knot it is not necessary to describe, but in the areas where
these could not be secured, the fockel was used, which as I un-
derstand, was superior to the pine knot, as it produced a brighter
light and was used in the same manner as a stave fockel.
The light next in use was the gig light, constructed of tin,
using two or three burners, the fuel being kerosene. These burn-
ers were constructed tapering and were soldered to the bottom
of a tin container, holding from two to four quarts of kerosene.
Cotton wicking was tightly drawn into the burners. A large
shield was placed over the burners to deflect the rays from the
operator's eyes and to cause a greater reflection of light on the
water. These lights were followed by the acetylene lamp and
the electric spot-light, which it is not necessary to describe. Both
of these lighted a much larger area than the pine knot.
Fockel. — The fockel was constructed usually from the staves
of tar barrels, four or five of which were wired together, and a
pole five or six feet long was used for a handle. This was car-
ried by one man over his shoulder, who proceeded slowly up
stream, followed by the spearmen, usually two or three in num-
362
OLD METHODS OF TAKING FISH
ber. When tar barrel staves could not be secured, strips of bark
from shellbark hickory trees, or pine boards were used. In both
of these latter instances the bark or boards were soaked in tar
and dried, then bound together by wire. Sometimes iron rings
were used for this purpose, one ring six inches in diameter, the
other four, into which the bark or wood was driven wedge-
shaped. Fockels were also made from tar and flax-tow. In the
construction of these, a broom-stick was dipped in tar, and the
V flax-tow was wrapped around it very tightly
until the tar was completely covered ; this
..... was then again dipped in the tar and the
^jjlr process continued until it was of the re-
quired size, usually about six or eight inches
Mp' in diameter. A fockel of that size was suf-
I ficient for a whole night's fishing.
I Spears or Gigs. — The spear or gig, as it
I is called, was constructed from a piece of
flat iron. These were usually made by a local
blacksmith, forged from iron, having from
three to four prongs, sometimes more. I
have seen them with eight prongs, but four
was about the usual number. These prongs
were flat and blunt, with barbs to prevent
fish from wriggling off when struck. I have
seen them constructed with prongs, extend-
ing in four directions, crossing at right
angles. These were heavy and very un-
handy, and not common. The spear was
used in conjunction with the lights for night
fishing. Ideal conditions were dark nights,
with no wind, as under this condition, fish
could be readily seen. Windy nights were
not as favorable, as the wind rippling the water, made conditions
bad, as it was hard to locate fish, unless in very shallow water.
Eight to sixteen inches of water is a good depth for that kind of
fishing and on very still nights fish could be successfully speared
in two feet of water. This was the extreme depth, however.
When fish were located, they were struck with the spear. The
OLD METHODS OF TAKING FISH 363
spearmen were followed by one or two men with a fish hommer.
These men were located at the outlet of the pools and when the
water became muddy after the spearmen passed up stream, they
turned and proceeded back, making all the noise and splashing
possible, stirring under banks and driving the fish before them
into the hommers set below. I will describe the fish hommer
later in this paper.
Tin Gig Light. — The mode of fishing changed somewhat with
the advent of the tin gig-light. This light was not nearly so cum-
bersome as the fockel and the spearman carried his light himself
and usually had some one to carry the sack to place the fish in.
I know this from personal experience, as I was the victim that
carried the fish-bag some thirty years ago. Some of my neigh-
bors arranged to go fish-spearing in Tohickon creek and I, boy-
like, was very anxious to join the expedition. The terms were
that I should carry the fish-bag, which I very readily agreed to
do. We fished the Tohickon creek from Harpel's bridge, near
Ottsville, to Stover's dam now Tohickon postofiice. Floundering
around in the water, sometimes nearly waist deep, over slippery
rocks and boulders, with a load of fish, was not a boy's job. I
fulfilled my contract w^ith aching bone and muscle. Suffice it to
say that I never entered into another contract of that kind, it was
a lesson I learned as a boy that I can still vividly recall. The
spear was also frequently used in the day time. Daylight spear-
ing, however, was only practiced in the early spring migrations
and when the creeks were normal the spearing being done as the
fish passed up over the shallow riffles towards the head waters.
Schlock Isen. — The "schlock isen", or striking iron, its Eng-
lish name, was used for taking fish in practically the same man-
ner as with the gig or spear, and was mostly used with a light at
night. It was also used in daytime in the up-stream migration
of fish in the spring, when they were passing over the rififles.
The striking iron was made in the shape of a sword from a piece
of iron about four feet long, flat, with a blunt edge, and curved
364
OLD METHODS OF TAKINX. FISH
up the narrow way, with a wooden handle. This was necessary
for if not curved it could not be used successfully, the resist-
ance of the water would create too much splash and the blow
could not be accurately given. While this was used a great deal,
its use was not as general as that of the spear. It was successful
for striking suckers, but not for eels as many of them would get
away, whereas this was impossible with the spear.
Another disadvantage was the mutilation of the
fish, and for that reason the practice was not as
general as was the use of the spear.
Ice Fishing. — I will try to explain methods of
ice fishing from personal experience as well as
from descriptions by persons who have used
other dififerent methods. I will first take the
metnods practiced in this county. Killing fish by
striking the ice with a heavy mallet like those
shown on the margin hereof, or an axe was used
m many cases. When the water froze over with
clear crystal ice so the bottom of the stream was
visible, conditions were right for this method of
fishing. By walking over the ice, fish could be
located, and by striking a heavy blow on the ice
the fish would be stunned. A hole was then
cut in the ice and the fish secured. Hooking fish
through ice was accomplished by having a burr
hook made on an iron rod, with a wooden handle, the length
over all being about six feet. A large hole was chopped in the
ice over deep pools. Usually one man stood at the opening in
the ice, while another would circle around and drive the fish
to the opening. With a quick, upward motion, the fish was
hooked and thrown out on the ice. In small ponds this could
often be accomplished by one man alone. This method was
practiced a great deal in Cook's creek, near Rattlesnake hill in
Durham township, and in Springfield township and as far as
I can learn, was the only place where this hook was used. I
was able to secure one to exhibit for this occasion. (Exhibits
hook.) Spearing fish through the ice was doubtless not prac-
ticed locally. This was done by cutting a hole through the ice
%
OLD METHODS OF TAKING FISH 365
sufficiently large to operate the spear and remove the fish after
being speared. The spearman used a metal minnow dangling
from a string and by keeping the string in motion the minnow-
would have the appearance of being alive. When the fish
would strike the minnow the spearman would strike the fish.
I presume that this was quite a sporting proposition as it no
doubt took some practice to become adept enough to do it
successfully and it probably required a great deal of skilh to
become proficient in spearing fish.
Use of the Tip-up in Ice Fishing. — A tip up was made from
a flat board, about sixteen inches long. A hole was bored into
one end for the line, and about six inches further another hole
was bored sufficiently large to use a stick of about an inch in
diameter, this stick acting as a pivot on which the tip-up could
swing, the heavier end of the board resting on the ice. The
line and bait were attached to the other end. When a fish
would strike the minnow the tip-up would start to bob up as a
signal and attract the attention of the fisherman. With fif-
teen to twenty holes and tip-ups scattered over a considerable
area, one man would have to hustle to keep his lines baited and
remove the fish. It was not necessary to have a fire as the exer-
cise would keep the operators warm. This method was used
in large inland lakes and ponds in from fifteen to twenty feet
of water. The bait, to work successfully, should be within
eighteen inches to two feet from the bottom. I personally have
done ice fishing. Not having tip-ups I cut brush, made a small
hole in the ice and tied the line to the brush at the bottom by
using some black line and tied a red string on the line and
hung it over the end of the brush. When the red string
dropped it would indicate a strike and the rest of the procedure
is the same as with the tip-up.
Snaring. — Another method used, when the water was clear,
was snaring. For this a short pole was used wnth a string, fas-
tened to the end by a very thin copper wire snood. The snood
was worked over the fish and a sudden jerk would capture the
fish as the loop would draw up sufficiently tight to hold the fish.
Use of Rye Straw in Taking Fish. — This method was used
in Stover's dam. Mechanics Vallev. It was last used about
366 OLD METHODS OF TAKING FISH
1890. Thomas Donat employed this method for ice fishing as
follows : He used a bundle of flail-threshed long rye straw.
The bundle of straw was securely tied at the heads and the
lower band taken off. A hole was cut in the ice of sufficient
size to pass the bundle through the butt-end first. The straw
was then forced to the bottom of the stream, and the water
would spread the straw. By walking over the ice, the fish
would hide in the straw, the bundle was then drawn upwards,
the straw would hold the fish until they were out of the water.
All that was necessary was to shake the fish out on the ice and
gather them up. This method, I am informed, was very suc-
cessful and Mr. Donat is the only man I have been able to learn
of who practiced this method of securing fish.
Explosives. — In the use of explosives for destroying fish,
three methods were employed. The two chief ones were dyna-
mite and fresh lime. This was probably among the easiest
methods of taking fish, and the results were always certain.
In the use of dynamite all that is necessary is a percussion cap
and a piece of safety fuse. In the use of fresh lime, a bottle
is filled with it, corked very tightly, with a small perforation
through the cork to admit water which slacks the lime, and the
steam and carbonic acid that is expelled exploded the bottle and
kills the fish. The other method of killing fish, is by the ex-
plosion of calcium carbide. A small hole is punched in a can of
carbide, which is then thrown into the stream, the admission of
water will cause an explosion. This is less dangerous and more
easily handled than dynamite, and the results will be adequate.
The concussions from any explosive burst the air bladders of
the fish and they are then gathered from the surface. This is
an unsportsman like way of taking fish, and is now punishable
by severe penalties, although not as severe as such heinous
offences deserve.
DiPNETS. — A dipnet is made by using a round hoop from four
to six feet in diameter. The net is suspended from the hoop
and is funnel shaped. This is operated by using a pole, with a
rope attached and the net dropped into a pool of water. During
its descent the fish are driven away, and consequently it be-
comes necessary to allow the net to rest quietly for some time,
LAMPS USED FOR GIGGING.
THROWNET DESCRIBED ON PAGE
OLD METHODS OF TAKING FISH 367
after which the tish settle towards the center, and are then
caught in the net. when it is raised and they are then taken. It
is occasionally necessary to bait dip nets. These were used in
the Delaware river, but they are now obsolete.
Throw-nets. — These are made circular, similar to a dip-net.
The dimensions are about the same, average diameter about five
feet. Instead of a solid iron ring, the mouth is made with a
heavy lead-line and the apex of the net is up instead of down
as in the dip-net. The net is one and a half inches mesh, cone-
shoped, with a ring in the apex. Small ropes are fastened to the
lead-line on the inside of net. These pass through the ring and
are joined together on a swivel, to which is attached the operat-
ing rope. The net is operated from the bank over deep pools.
The method is to tie the rope to the operator's arm on which it
is coiled, then take the lead-line in the mouth and by grasping it
by the other hand, you make a swing which spreads the net and
it settles in the water fully extended. Where the net drops, all
fish within the circle of the lead-line are caught. By pulling and
jerking the lead-line the net is drawn together and forms a
pocket above the leads in which the fish are trapped. It is the
reverse of the dipnet, as it is immediately withdrawn after the
cast is made and is operated from pool to pool.
Stake-net. — The stake-net was used in tidewater fishing.
Stakes were driven in the beach along low-water mark, usually
along marshes, and were in length from one to three hundred
yards, according to conditions along the shore line. The net was
usually about two feet deep. On the flow of the tide, the water
would rise over the net and the fish would feed on the marshes.
On the ebb tide the water would recede and the fish, dropping
back with the tide, could not get further than the net. This
would leave the fish stranded on the beach where they could
easily be secured.
Eel-racks. — To construct an eel-rack, use two 3 bv 4 inch
scantling fourteen feet long, joined together by cross-pieces, two
feet apart. The scantling should be five feet apart. Take lath
for bottom and sides, one-half by one inch, sufficient to cover bot-
tom, and raise sides eight inches. Laths should be one-quarter-
368 OLD METHODS OF TAKING FISH
inch apart. At the funnel-end of rack, use inch boards three to
four feet long, and lap them over lath six inches. These boards
must be tight. In the mouth of the rack use a six-inch board, up-
right. This is to keep the eels in the rack so they
cannot go back up stream. Under the down stream
end of rack, bolt on two uprights of sufficient
strength to hold the rack, and of sufficient length to
raise the rack above the level of the flowing water.
This will check and hold the eels from going over the
rack and allow the water to pass through. When
the rack is not in use, it can be lowered and every-
thing will pass over it. Where the stream is too
wide, small dams were built, with stones and rye
straw to narrow the stream to the width of rack.
These are the dimensions of a rack used in the Dur-
ham or Cook's creek at Rattlesnake hill and in
Springfield township. These racks were operated
in the fall of the year, about the time the leaves
started to drop. A good
time was when the streams
started to rise on the first
fall rains, at that time the
eels usually started their
fall migrations to the sea.
Eels travel down stream
head first and differ very
much from other fish in
this respect, as fish on high
water go down stream tail
first. This accounts for no
fish being caught in eel-
racks. A fish going down
would strike the guard
board in the mouth of the
rack with his tail and
would head up stream. Eels were re-
moved from the racks with wooden ^^^ tongs
tongs, having short, blunt nails driven into the jaws like those
shown on margin. Eel-racks are not now used, excepting prob-
OLD METHODS OF TAKING FISH 369
ably on the head water of the Delaware river as they are not
lawful in the inland streams.
Bobbing for Eels. — This was a sporting pastime indulged in
to a great extent before methods of fishing were governed and
restricted by legislation. In bobbing for eels, the practice in mak-
ing the bobs was to thread a needle with three or four yards of
flax-thread, and with a good supply of earth worms, thread them
on the thread, then bunch them together, then with a string
fasten them to a short pole, setting the bob down on the bottom
of the stream. The fishing was usually done out of a boat. The
eels bit into the worms, their teeth fastened to the thread, the bob
was raised up over the boat and the eels would drop off. Where
a boat was not available, and you bobbed from the shore, a tub
was placed in the stream into which to drop the eels, as the fish
could not be secured if the bob was held at an angle to place them
on the shore. The tub was held in place by a pole sufiiciently
long to secure one end of it to the shore. This was considered
good sport and was practiced a great deal years ago.
Barrel Fishing. — Make a hole in the end of a barrel, and
over the hole place a flap, then put a quantity of slaughter-house
refuse in the barrel, with sufficient ballast to sink it to the bottom
of the stream. This placed in deep water, particularly after a
rain, will catch eels by the bushel. This was practiced in the
Saucon creek, near Hellertown, Pa., some years ago with great
success.
Use of Walnut Root Bark in Taking Trout. — This method
was used by the Cherokee Indians in North Carolina. There
were times when the trout would not bite, and an Indian wants
fish when he is hungry. That method was to take the bark from
the roots of walnut trees, crush and pulp it to obtain the juices,
which is then poured into the ripples above the pools in which
trout abound. The action of the juices stupify the fish and they
come to the surface and are then gathered, and "Lo, the poor
Indian," has trout for his supper, apparently an easy way when
trout are not in a biting mood.
Gill-net or Floating-net. — These are used for tidewater
fishing, running in length from one hundred to five hundred feet,
370 OLD METHODS OF TAKING FISH
depending on the width of water to be fished. The gill-net is a
straight net with a float-line and lead-line, meshes four inches and
more, woven from very thin twine. In working a gill-net, one
end is fastened to a buoy and the other end to a boat. The whole
drifts with the tide. Fish striking the net, the head passes through
the mesh. When the fish strike this barrier they try to back out
and the thin mesh holds them by the gills. The fish are removed
by hauling in the net and then leaving it out again. In
fishing with the gill-net. the fisherman holds the float-line and can
tell when a fish strikes and they follow up the net as previously
described. This method is exclusively a tidewater proposition, al-
though the principle has been used in smaller streams, but in that
case the net is set stationary and fish are driven by paddling in
a boat and beating the water. This is not permissible in inland
waters and is punishable by heavy penalties.
Outline or Set-cord. — Outlines were principally used for
taking catfish and eels. In the Delaware river perch, rock fish and
bass were also taken. The length of an outline depending on the
width of stream to be fished, the usual length being from one
hundred to five hundred feet and even greater in length, often
reaching from shore to shore. A heavy cord was stretched across
a body of water and weighted to the bottom, with hooks fastened
thereto often as close as two feet. The snoods to which the
hooks were fastened were usually about eighteen inches in length
and were tied to the main cord with a loop-knot. After the line
was set, the hooks were baited, either with small chunks of meat
of live fish. If set in shallow water the line was followed by
wading; in deep waters a boat was used. The inspection of the
line was repeated at short intervals. When fish were caught they
were removed, the hook re-baited and again dropped in the
water. Oftentimes bait and hook were swallowed. In a case of
that kind, the snood with fish was removed and another snood
with hook substituted. The bait generally was what is known as
dead bait, although sometimes outlines were set for game fish by
using live bait. Some years ago a set line was used in the Dela-
ware river for taking bass, live baits were used and the line was
set from shore to shore. The outline was successful only when
in muddy waters, the set-line was used in daytime, in clear water
it was used at nis'ht. It was not successful in clear water in the
OLD METHODS OF TAKING FISH 371
day time and vice versa; but results were about the same when
fished under the conditions noted.
DiPSEV OR Handline. — 'lliis was at one time practiced a great
deal. Dipsey fishing derived its name from a chunk of
lead, from one-half to one ounce in weight. This was called the
dipsey and in wide waters, where no boats were available, the
dipsey was used to carry the line and bait out into midstream.
The usual length of line was from fifty to seventy-five feet. The
line was carefully coiled on the bank, and usually a heavy cord
was used to avoid tangles. The cord was taken in the left hand
about eighteen inches from the dipsey, this was twirled in a ciru-
lar motion until sufficient momentum was acquired to carry the
line out to the full length, the end of the cord being fastened to
a stake on the bank. Usually from five to six of these lines
would radiate in diflferent directions from the one stake. By
watching the lines a strike could easily be located by the motion
of the line. Occasionally a fisherman would fasten a small bell
to the stake and then take a nap and depend on the bell to warn
him of a strike. The dipsey principle is only used now in bait-
casting with rod and reel, short rod, four and one half or five and
one half feet, with a free running reel, and weights from one-
quarter to one-half ounce, casting direcf off the reel. With the
overhead cast your bait can be easily placed from seventy-five to
one hundred feet, if you have sufficient practice to prOperly
handle a bait-casting outfit. I have often seen fishermen with the
finest casting outfits fishing along our streams and instead of
casting from the reel, place their bait dipsey-fashion.
Float Fishing. — This method was usually practiced in large
bodies of still water usually in large dams or inland ponds and
lakes. A float was made from a one-quarter inch board, two and
one-half to three inches wide and abovit eight inches long. The
line was fastened to the center of the float ; its length was regu-
lated by the depth of water, which was often from three to eight
feet deep. Sufficient line was attached to the float so that part
of it would remain on the surface in the deepest water as well as
the shallow. The line was shortened by winding around the float.
If a fish was caught and made for deep water the motion of the
water would unwind the float so it would remain on the surface.
372 OLD METHODS OF TAKING FISH
In float fishing one hundred floats were usually about the number
used, and by the action of the floats those that had fish could
usually be ascertained and these were followed by boat and the
fish removed. Dead bait being usually used, although in ponds
where pickerel were found, they were often successfully used
with live bait. I recall a story from one who had experienced
that they used toy balloons instead of the wooden floats for
pickerel and successfully too. This method has been tabooed by
legislation.
Fish Hommer or Single-brail Scoop-net. — The dimensions
of a single-brail scoop-net are as follows: Main hoop or mouth,
six feet in width at the lead line, thirty-eight inches high. Brail
is a forked stick five feet long; forks, twenty-six inches long to
lead-line, with a spread of fourteen inches. The brail is fastened
to cross piece eighteen inches from the lead line ; length of cross
bar, fifty-six inches ; depth of net from mouth to tail, thirty-six
inches, tapering to a tail ten inches in diameter and three feet,
long; length of net, about seven feet. This form of net was
used by wading the stream, usually the width of narrow channels
in small streams, mill-races and places of that sort, the scoop was
set by one man holding the brail with net resting on the bottom
of the stream ; and anotJ;ier man beating and splashing the water
to scare the fish into the net. A quick upward movement of the
brail would bag the net so the fish could not get out, the brail was
then lifted up and the fish taken out through the tail end of the
net. This was frequently used in connection with gigging by
artificial light, as previously explained under that subject. This
is entirely different from the regular scoop-net, as they have a
brail at each end are used to scoop out the fish in small pockets
along the banks of streams with pockets in the eddies.
Fyke, Fish Baskets of Set-net. — The dimensions of a fyke
are: Width at mouth, fortyeight inches; height, thirty inches;
diameter at mouth of funnel or trap, twenty- four inches tapering
to three inches to inlet and funnel eighteen inches long ; main di-
ameter of basket, about 20 inches and length over all eight feet.
Net is extended by iron hoops, four in number. The funnel is
fastened to the first hoop and is kept in position by strings
fastened to the third hoop. The net is set with the tail or basket
FYKE NET.
SINGLE BRAIL SCOOP NET OR HOMMER.
OLD METHODS OF TAKING FISH 373
upstream and the mouth at the head of a riffle. Where the riffles
are wider than the mouth of the fyke, small dams were con-
structed to guide the fish into the fykes and occasionally in wide
water net- wings were used, which often extending many feet
on either side. Fykes were used in the spring for the up-stream
migrations of suckers. Years ago they were used extensively in
the shallow riffles in the Delaware river, some of them of large
dimension, sufficient net being used to completely shut off the
narrow channels with the large fyke in the center of the net. A
fyke can be set only with the tail up stream as leaves and drift
coming down with the current would soon clog the mouth and
prevent fish from entering, the fish after passing through the
mouth cannot get out of the fyke and are removed through the
opening in the tail of the basket, this being closed by a draw
string arrangement. Present day fykes are often made from
one-quarter inch galvanized wire, some with a trap in one end
and others made longer with a trap in each end. These will
catch fish both coming and going. I secured one several years
ago from the Neshaminy, which was placed there in a narrow
channel below a riffle and baited with meat to attract fish. This
one was a double ender.
Spinners. — I should not fail also to mention the spinner. This
probably is one of the highest attainments for taking fish with
artificial lures. They come in all sizes and shapes, are adaptable
to both fly-rod and bait fishing, can be used with any and all
kinds of baits and are constructed single and tandem. I have
personally used spinners successfully in many combinations and
have caught small-mouth bass with a small spinner and a small
patch of white cotton goods or red flannel. The story of the dis-
covery of the spinner is as follows : While fishing for pickerel
from a boat on a day that pickerel were not biting, the fisherman
came to shore disgusted. In stepping out of the boat a small
piece of broken spoon dropped from his outfit struck the water
and started to ricochet on the water when a large pickerel struck
it. The fisherman then took a silver dime and made a small
spinner, attached it to a line and made the first spinner to take
fish when all other baits had failed. And thus the spinner con-
tinues to take fish, if properly used.
374 OLD METHODS OF TAKING FISH
Rods and Lines. — This subject is probably too well known to
enter into a lengthy discussion, as the rod and line today is
probably more used than at any time since fish were first caught.
This is especially true as it applies to the game fishes. The rods
first used were usually cut along the streams from sprouts of the
different woods and ordinary twine was used for a line, and the
bent pin for a hook. This was followed by the ordinary bamboo
pole, then the split bamboo, made into very substantial bait and
fly casting rods. With this advent came the reel and the finer
grades of silk lines, constructed very light, yet of sufificient
strength to successfully out-manoeuvre any fish, regardless of
size or gameness. With this came the barbed hook. Rods and
lines were first used with live bait, worms, different species of
minnows and underwater bait, such as helgramites, crayfish, tad-
poles, etc., all used for the purpose of securing game fishes. As
the art of casting became more of an accomplishment and the
fisherman became proficient in the use of the reel, these natural
baits became less used and were supplanted by the imitations of
the natural live baits, such as plugs, surface and underwater, and
in such designs as to imitate everything on the water, under the
water, on the earth and under the sun, and many imitations never
seen under the sun; yet they will catch fish, if properly handled.
Floating bugs are now constructed of sufficient weight to be
used in casting. Rods can be secured made of steel, both jointed
and telescope. Next comes the fly-rod. These are usually made
from split bamboo, this being the most substantial and more pli-
able than the heavier woods. The construction of a fly rod to
balance perfectly and handle properly, is a science. Rods of this
character run in length from eight to ten and one-half feet, and
in weight from two to seven ounces. This is usually the extreme
weight and the lighter rods are used only in fly fishing with
enameled line and gut leaders. Leaders average from three to
nine feet in length. The wet fly can be easily handled on an out-
fit of this kind and is fished down stream and is an underwater
bait. The handling of a fly takes a great deal of practice on the
part of the fisherman and is the last test of a real fisherman or
the man that has passed out of the amateur class into a profes-
sional class, as he will not consider anything but the dry fly. The
dry fly is an entirely different creation from a wet fly, is always
OLD METHODS OF TAKING FISH 375
fished up stream and is entirely a surface bait. The hackle and
wings on the dry fly stand up, whereas on the wet fly they lie flat.
The perfect outfit for dry fly fishing should consist of a two or
three ounce rod, length about nine and one-half feet ; a tapered
six feet; leader and a tapered gut to join fly, an outfit that today
would cost $100. With an outfit of that kind, you can place a
fly on the water just as a real fly would actually alight, and place
it at the right spot.
To fish successfully you must know fish, their habits, etc., and
you wall come home with a creel full. Flies are made in imitation
of all insects that are found along the water and in recent years
the imitations have been extended to imitate the larva of many
insects found along streams, as fish feed a great deal on this
larva. So the fisherman who knows when they are not surface-
feeding offers them the underwater food. I am not able in this
article to take up the different methods of rod and reel fishing in
detail, as volumes have been written covering only a portion of
these different subjects. As to the dry fly fisherman, he carries
his little bottle of dry fly oil, made from deer fat, as he has to
occasionally oil his line and fly to keep it dry. This is a small
bottle, with a leather loop, buttoned on to a vest button. The dry
fly is the highest obtainable in fishing, and when you can handle
that you are a real fly fisherman, so much so that the real fly
fisherman of today demands a barbless hook, for fishing. The-
barbless hook is the delight of the highest type of fisherman and.
the introduction is so recent that they cannot as yet be secured in:
a commercial way, their use has been confined to the fisherman
who constructs his own tackle, and ties his own flies. The
man who buys his flies can only substitute by filing the barbs off
of the commercial flies. The satisfaction of landing the fish on.
the barbless hook is true sportsmanship in at least giving the fish
an even break to out-maneuver him in bringing him to creel,,
quite in contrast with the barbarious methods described in the
early part of this paper.
I have given just a few of the baits that are offered as the best
for a full creel. I heard it stated recently that the best bait for
fishing under any and all conditions of weather and water and
the different species of fishes is "brains." These properly used
at the rod-end of the fishing tackle will bring results.
Early History of Washington's Crossing and Its Environs.
BY WARREN S. ELY, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Read at the opening of Memorial Park, Wasliing-ton's Crossing, Oct. 1, 1921.)
WHILE I feel greatly honored at being selected by your
committee of arrangements to read a historical paper at
this meeting, I had great reluctance in undertaking to
deliver an address on the subject of the Battle of Trenton, for the
reason that greater historians than I have fully covered this
ground already. General W. S. Stryker, in his "Battles of Tren-
ton and Princeton," has given a detailed history of the move-
ments of the army, which is unquestionably reliable, as he had
original material from which to gather his data. On this very
spot June 14, 1902, General W. W. H. Davis read a paper be-
fore a meeting of the Society of Sons of the Revolution, to which
he gave the title "The Alpha and Omega of the Revolution."
This address, which was published in full by the society and also
by General Davis, so fully covers the history of the movements
of the contending armies in Bucks county, and the Delaware and
Schuylkill peninsula, that I have frequently said, and here re-
iterate, that it ought to be a text book in every public school in
Bucks county. Much also has been written by other historians
about the Battle of Trenton, which was unquestionably the turn-
ing point in the struggle for independence.
I therefore, propose, in this brief address, to confine myself
entirely to local incidents and history and to an effort to correct
a few minor errors made in the pamphlet issued by this commis-
sion and supplement the history given therein, giving more fully
the location of the different camps and commands during the in-
terval between December 6 and 26, 1776, and also to give some
history of this historic site from the time of the first settlement.
This site has been an historic one from the time of the first
settlement of the English on the Delaware. This point marks the
line between the lands taken up by the first Quaker settlement and
those taken up by the Scotch Irish and other later settlers.
Lying next above the Hough tract was the Proprietor's Manor
of Highlands, which extended up into Solebury near the lower
EARLY HISTORY OF WASHINGTON S CROSSING O//
line of the present borough of New Hope and back from the
river to Newtown and Wrightstown townships. That part of
the manor now lying in Solebury was sold to actual settlers and
the greater part of the remainder was patented to the Pennsy-
lvania Land Company of London, commonly referred to as the
London Company.
On the last named tract was tried one of the two experiments
in the colonization of Pennsylvania, to provide homes for tenant
farmers and establish a mild form of feudalism, such as existed
in England. The London Company divided up their tract into
farms varying in size from one hundred to two hundred and fifty
acres and leased them to settlers, unimproved, with privilege of
acquiring title to improvements. On these farms settled new-
comers, many of them Ulster Scots and other persons of small
means. But the cheapness of land prevented the success of the
scheme, and the London Company sold out their lands in 1760
and they were largely purchased by the tenants or their descend-
ants. The London Company had another large tract in Tinicum,
and others in Chester and other counties.
This site is part of the tract of three hundred acres taken up
by Henry Baker in 1684, and was known as Baker's Ferry for
nearly a century. Lying just above it was the tract of Richard
Hough and lying next below w^ere the two tracts taken up by
Joseph and Daniel Milnor, and below them was the first home of
the Harvey family, founded by Matthias Harvey, who purchased
one thousand acres laid out to Thomas Hudson. Richard Hough
and Henry Baker, with William Yardley and Thomas Janney,
whose homes were within five miles of this point, were among
the chief advisors and friends of William Penn, and all promi-
nent members of the early assembly and council. Richard Hough
did not reside on the tract lying above Baker's but upon another
tract five miles south of this point near the line of Falls town-
ship. He came from Macclesfield in the County of Chester, Eng-
land, arriving in the Delaware river in the ship "Endeavor of
London," 7 mo. 29, 1683. Makefield was originally called Mac-
clesfield, and was named for the former residence of Richard
Hough. He took an active part in all affairs in the early history
of our county — political, social and religious. His house was one
of the meeting places of Friends before the erection of Falls
378 EARLY HISTORY OF WASHINGTON'S CROSSING
Meeting House. He represented Bucks county in the Provincial
Assembly almost continuously from 1684 to 1704, and was a
member of Provincial Council in 1693 and 1700. He was drowned
in the river Delaware while proceeding with other members of
assembly in a "wherry" to a session of assembly in Philadelphia
on March 25, 1705. William Penn, in a letter written 7 mo. 14.
1705, says: "I lament the loss of honest Richard Hough. Such
men must needs be wanted where selfishness and forgetfulness of
God's mercies so much abound."
Joseph Milnor, a neighbor of the Bakers, on the south, was
also a member of assembly for several years.
Henry Baker came to Pennsylvania early in 1684 from Darby
in the County of Lancaster, England, bringing a certificate from
the Friends' Meeting at Hardshaw, dated 3 mo. 27, 1684, which
included his wife and family. He settled at once at this point,
taking up a tract of three hundred acres, which was surveyed to
him 2 mo. 25. 1685. In 1696 he purchased of Henry Margarum
the two hundred and fifty acres of the Hough tract, which Mar-
gerum had purchased of Richard Hough in 1688. This extended
his plantation farther up the river. The finally-established line
between his land and the remainder of the Hough tract was
twenty perches north of the original terminus of the first road
laid out by county authority, August 26, 1723, to the ferry, and
this road terminated at the break in the bank of the river just
below the lower point of the island, as shown by a draft on file
in the office of clerk of quarter sessions, a copy of which I will
attach to this paper. Its terminus would therefore be practically
the site of the historic crossing of Washington's army on Christ-
mas night. The road was changed to its present line in 1769.
This road of 1723 was possibly the result of a presentment of
the "grand inquest of our Lord the King for ye body of the
County of Bucks" in 1690, which presented the "necessity of a
road from ye King's road above Samuel Baker's leading to
Southampton road which leads to Philadelphia, for the conven-
iency of ye upper inhabitants of Makefield." The King's road
was doubtless the River road, the date of the laying out of which
is unknown to me.
Along the original line between the Richard Hough and Henry
Baker tracts was an ancient highway "which was laid out at first
EARLY HISTORY OF WASHINGTON'S CROSSING 379
survey of said lands." Oliver Hough, in his pamphlet on
"Richard Hough, Provincial Councillor," assumes that this road
was the present road from Taylorsville to the Eagle. The latter
road did originally extend to the river, that part from its present
terminus at the outer River road running through the Lownes
farm having been vacated several years ago. But the line of the
road, as now existing, does not coincide in its course with the
line of division between the original surveys, and it is doubtless
a later laid-out road.
Henry Baker also owned considerable other land in Bucks
county, including a large tract at Newtown, and another in
Wrightstown. He continued to reside at the Ferry until 1696,
when he purchased a lot in Buckingham, now Bristol, and re-
moving there was associated with Samuel Carpenter in the opera-
tion of the first mill erected in Bristol. He died at Bristol in 1701.
Henry Baker was foreman of the first grand jury of Bucks
county in 1685. He was a member of Provincial Assembly
1685, 1687, 1688, 1689, 1690 and 1698. He was justice of the
courts of Bucks county from 1689 to near the date of his death.
He was also a member of Provincial Council in 1689-90, and was
one of the commission appointed to divide Bucks county into
townships in 1692. His first wife, Margaret, died June 2, 1688.
and he married second in 1692 Mary Radclifife, widow of James
Radclifife, one of the first settlers in Wrightstown. She survived
him several years. By his first wife he had nine children, and by
the second, one, Margaret, who married William Atkinson. His
eldest child, Rachel, married first Job Bunting, and second John
Cowgill. His second daughter, Sarah, married first Stephen Wil-
son, and second Isaac Milnor. Another daughter, Phebe, married
first Edward Radcliffe, her step-brother, and second William
Stockdale. Esther, the youngest daughter, by the first marriage,
married first Thomas Yardley, second William Brown, and third
Richard Hough, Jr. His sons were Samuel and Nathan. The
latter removed from Bucks county at an early date.
Samuel Baker inherited under his father's will the lands at the
Ferry, which by the original surveys contained five hundred and
fifty acres extending back from the river at the Ferry six hun-
dred and eight-four perches. By order of the Proprietaries the
two tracts were resurveyed in November 11. 1700, by Edward
380 EARLY HISTORY OF WASHINGTON'S CROSSING
Pennington, surveyor general, and were found to contain eight
hundred fifty-nine and one-half acres, insteal of six hundred and
five, to which Samuel Baker was entitled, by adding the six per
cent, allowance for roads and highways. This left a surplvis of
two hundred fifty-four and one-half acres to be purchased, and
Samuel Baker as heir to Henry agreed to pay for this surplus at
the rate of £20 per one hundred acres, or £51, 2s. 6d, and a
patent was accordingly issued to him September 10, 1702. On
October 8, 1708, he sold to John Baldwin one hundred acres at
the rear or back part of the tract, and continued to own and oc-
cupy until his death the remainder of the tract fronting on the
Delaware about two hundred and ten perches and extending
back from the river about one and one-half miles.
Samuel Baker was born in West Derbye, Lancashire, August
1, 1676, and came with his parents to Pennsylvania, arriving in
Philadelphia July 17, 1684. He married in July 1793, Rachel
Warder, daughter of Willoughby Warder, of Falls township.
He, like his father, was prominent in public afifairs. He was
commissioned a justice on March 6, 1708, and recommissioned
March 3. 1710. He was elected to the Provincial xA.ssembly in
1710 and in 1711. He or his son, Samuel, Jr., was commissioner
of Bucks county in 1722, and coroner in 1725.
Samuel Baker by deed dated May 2, 1717, conveyed all his
lands in Makefield to Charles Norris, of Philadelphia — the eight
hundred forty-nine and one-half acres patented to Samuel on
November 10, 1702, less the one hundred acres sold to John
Baldwin in 1708, leaving the tract to extend six hundred and
sixty-four perches back from the river on the southern line and
five hundred and seventy perches on the northern line, and two
hundred and seventy perches wide ; also three tracts in the
Manor of Highlands, two of sixteen acres and eighty perches,
and sixteen acres and forty perches, respectively, and a meadow
tract of one hundred and one acres and forty-eight perches.
Charles Norris conveyed six hundred acres of this tract to
Samuel Baker, Jr.
Samuel and Rachel (W^arder) Baker had eleven children : Ann
Mary, who married Charles Biles ; Samuel, who succeeded to the
ownership of the Ferry ; Henry, who lived and died near the
Ferry; Nathan, who died young; Sarah, who married Abel
EARLY HISTORY OF WASHINGTON'S CROSSING 381
Janney, and removed to Virginia; John, who died in Philadelphia
in 1759; Joseph, a hatter, who died in Philadelphia in 1790;
Benjamin, who died young; Lydia, who married John Burroughs;
and Margaret, who married a Tomlinson ; and another Nathan
who removed to Maryland.
Samuel Baker, Jr., son of Samuel and Rachel, born at Baker's
Ferry April 28, 1706, died there in 1769. He acquired the greater
part of his father's lands, including the ferry and six hundred
acres. Under the terms of his will, dated June 25, 1758, pro-
bated September 23, 1760, his lands were directed to be sold by
his executors, who were his wife, Elizabeth, and John Burroughs.
These executors, by deed dated December 5, 1774 (not recorded
but recited in the latter deeds), conveyed the site of the ferry and
five hundred and sixty three acres to Samuel McConkey. The
sale, however, must have been consummated and possession given
several years prior to this date, as on the opening of the road
from the Ferry to Newtown in 1769, the Ferry and the land
through which it extended is referred to as McConkey's, late
Baker's Ferry. Samuel McConkey sold the five hundred and
ninety-three-acre tract, containing by resurvey over six hundred
and five acres, in three tracts. By deed dated March 22, 1777,
he conveyed the Ferry site and three hundred and four acres and
also another tract of twenty-five acres to Benjamin Taylor, of
Hunterdon county. N. J. By deed dated April 2, 1777. he con-
veyed to his son John McConkey one hundred and forty-six
acres lying between the two tracts conveyed to Taylor, and on
December 4, 1778, he conveyed the balance of the tract, one
hundred and fifty acres, to his son. Captain William McConkey.
John McConkey, on April 22, 1777, conveyed forty-six acres of
his purchase to Benjamin Taylor, and Benjamin Taylor in 1784
conveyed to Henry Baker, in trust for Joseph Baker, one hun-
dred and three acres fronting on the river below the Ferry, part
of the McConkey tract. This tract remained in the tenure of the
Baker family until 1829, when it was conveyed by Mary B.
Baker to Mahlon K. Taylor. Henry Baker, brother of Samuel,
Jr., in 1763, purchased one hundred and thirteen acres in the
Manor of Highland, on which he lived and died, and its owner-
ship passed to Noah Slack by deed from his executors in 1786.
So much for the history of the site. We will now turn to the
382 EARLY HISTORY OF WASHINGTON'S CROSSING
occupation of Makefield by Washington and his army in Decem-
ber, 1776.
LOCATION AND MOVEMENTS OF WASHINGTON'S ARMY IN BUCKS
COUNTY PRIOR TO THE BATTLE OF TRENTON.
General Washington after the crossing of the Delaware at
Trenton to Bucks county, on December 8, 1776, established his
residence and headquarters at "Summerseat" in Morrisville and
remained there until December 14. During this time he wrote
many letters dated at "Head-Quarters Trenton Falls." The out-
look was gloomy indeed. In one of his letters he writes: "No
man I believe ever had greater choice of difftculties and less
means to extricate himself from them."
While he had been successful in collecting all the boats along
the river from Bordentown to Tinicum and secreting and guard-
ing them on the west side of the Delaware, there was always
danger that the river would freeze over sufficiently for Howe's
army to cross, and he was also apprehensive that they had car-
ried a number of "flat bottomed boats" or "pontoons" with them
from New Brunswick. In his letter to Congress, December 13.
the last before his removal to the Kieth house, he writes :
"The apparent designs of the enemy to avoid the ferry and land their
troops above and below us have induced me to remove from this place
the greater part of the troops and throw them into different dispositions
on the river, whereby I hope not only to be able to impede their passage
but also avoid the danger of being enclosed in this angle of the river
* * * I cannot divest myself of the opinion that their principal de-
sign is to ford the river somewhere above Trenton to which design I
have had particular respect in the new arrangement wherein I am so
far happy as to have the concurrence of the General Officers at this
place. Four Brigades of the Army under Generals Lord Sterling,
Mercer, Stephen and DeFermoy^ extend from Yardley up to Coryell's
1 Chevalier Matthias Alexis LeRoche De Fermoy, formerly a colonel in the
French service, on November 2, 1776, offered his services to Congress and ap-
plied for a commission in the Continental service. On November 5, he was
appointed by Congress a Brigadier General. On November 9 he was granted
two months advanced pay and ordered to repair to the Northern Army at
Ticonderoga and put himself under the command of General Schuyler.
A letter of General Schuyler to General Gates on November 27 shows that
he had not yet arrived, and on November 25, he was ordered to report at
once to Washington, instead of going to the northward. He evidently joined
Washington during the retreat across New Jersey, as in the General's letter
to the Board of War, dated "Head-Quarters, Trenton, December, 1776," he
-says, "Yours of the 26th last month was delivered to me by the Brigadier
LeRoche De Formoy, who is now here, but unable to render me that service
which I daresay from his character, he would was he better acquainted with
our language." However, at about that date he was placed in command of
the division comprising the regiments of Colonel Hand and Colonel Hassegger
with which he was stationed at Coryell's Ferry from December 8 to De-
cember 25.
EARLY HISTORY OF WASHINGTON'S CROSSING 383
Ferry posted in such manner as to guard every suspicious part of the
river and to afford assistance to each other in case of attack. General
Ewing with the Flying Camp of Pennsylvania and a few Jersey troops
under General Dickinson are posted from Yardley's Ferry down to the
ferry opposite Bordentown. General Cadwallader with the Pennsyl-
vania Militia occupies the ground above and below Neshaminy river as
far down as Dunk's Ferry at which Colonel Nixon is placed with the
thiid battalion of Philadelphia * * *
I shall remove further up the river to be near the main body of my
small army, with which every possible opposition shall be given to any
further approach of the enemy towards Philadelphia."
The letter concluded with an earnest appeal for the promotion
of the recruiting service and to encourage the Militia to come in.
Of the militia, however, the general had no very high opinion
at this time. In another letter to Congress he writes :
"Camp above Trenton Falls. Can anything (the exigency of the
case indeed may justify it) be more destructive to the recruiting service
than giving ten dollars bounty for six weeks service of the Militia, who
come in, you cannot tell how, and act, you cannot tell where, consume
your provisions, exhaust your stores, and leave you at last at a critical
moment."
He was of course much tried by so many whose term of en-
listment had just expired, leaving his service at this critical mo-
ment of adversity.
Of the "four brigades" above referred to by Washington, in the
letter above quoted, General Lord Sterling was at Beaumont's
Ferry, between Brownburg and New Hope, with headquarters in
the house of Robert Thompson at Avhat is known as Neeley's
Mill. His command consisted of the four regiments of Colonel
Reed, Colonel Haslet, Colonel \A'eeden and Major Enion Wil-
liams, of Bristol, an aggregate of 1623 men. On December 12,
1776, Lord Sterling writes General Washington from "Blue
Mounts" giving him intelligence in reference to the movements
of the enemy on the opposite side of the river, "gathered from spies
lately arrived from their encampmeiit," stating that Cornwallis
with his command was in and about "Penny Town" and General
Howe in Trenton with some British and Hessian troops. He
reports having "sent one piece of cannon to Colonel Weedon"
(who does not at that time appear to be stationed at Beaumonts)
"and as to the three regiments here now, (they) lie compact and
well covered with boards, and nearly centrical to Yardlev's and
384 EARLY HISTORY OF WASHINGTON'S CROSSING
Corriel's ferries. I believe it best to let them remain in their pres-
ent situation till some movement of the enemy makes it neces-
sary to alter it."
He states that he will "send Captain Taylor over this evening
to try his hand among the enemy encamped about Penny Town,"
and concludes with this significant advice :
"If our troops were not so much worn out I would propose to your
Excellency that about twelve hundred good men should cross over at
Tinicum and come down upon them suddenly from the north. If
General Lee is in their rear this would greatly cooperate with him and
tend to disconcert their measures much. I would willingly try the ex-
periment," and adds as a postscript, "I cannot find that any persons
who have been among them know anything of their pontoons or that
they are building any boats."
Gen. Lee, with characteristic obstinacy was loitering in New
Jersey, though Washington in his letters had repeatedly urged
him to proceed at once to the Delaware and cross at Tinicum
where he had provided boats for his crossing. He even sent
Lord Sterling to Easton to look after his safe crossing, as shown
by a letter written by Sterling from that point. He was finally
captured by a small British force under Colonel Harcourt at
Baskenridge on December 13, while sleeping at a tavern three
miles outside of his lines. His command under General John
Sullivan then immediately obeyed Washington's order, marched
to the Delaware at Tinicum and joined the other forces in Make-
field on December 20, in time to take part in the battle.
DeFermoy was at Coryell's Ferry with his two regiments and
General Greene who was Major General seems to have had no
special command but was Washington's chief adviser and sec-
ond in command, spent some time at Coryell's Feny. His letters
are all dated from there, from December 15 to 24.
"A return of the forces in the service of the States of America
encamped and in quarters on the banks of the. Delaware in the
State of Pennsylvania under the command of his excellency
George Washington, Esq. Commander in Chief of all the forces
of the United States of America, December 22, 1776" made to
the Board of War, at that date aggregates 10,106 men.
This list included Sullivan's command under Colonels Hitch-
cock, Glover and McDougalls. but did not include such remnants
EARLY HISTORY OF WASHINGTON'S CROSSING 385
of Gen. Gates' army as was able to join Washington at the last
moment. Nor did it include the militia and volunteers.
There is every reason to believe that the camp at Beaumonts
included more than four regiments under the immediate com-
mand of Lord Stirling. It was located in what is still known as
"Camp Woods" lying between the eastern base of Bowman's
Hill and the Delaware river and was the chief camp of the forces
who participated in the Battle of Trenton. It was from there
that Washington wrote a number of his official letters dated at
"Camp above the Falls" between December 14 and 24. Here Tom
Paine is said to have written his immortal "American Crisis" be-
ginning with the words "These are the times that try mens
souls" and it was read to the soldiers there. Near there are the
only marked graves of patriot soldiers who died during the oc-
cupation of Makefield. On December 17 Congress directed Gen-
eral Washington to immediately order that the militia of Bucks
and Northampton counties join him and to disarm all who refuse,
and treat as enemies any one who attempts to oppose the execu-
tion of this order. As a result of this order General Washing-
ton sent out the following order to Colonels Joseph Kirkbride,
Joseph Hart, Andrew Kachlein and Joseph Savitz, commanding
the Bucks county militia :
"Sir: The honourable the Council of Safety of the State of Penn-
sylvania having by a resolve passed the 17th day of this instant, De-
cember, authorized me to call forth the Militia of the County of Bucks
to the assistance of the Continental Army under my command, I here-
by require you immediately to issue orders to the Captains of your
Regiment, to summon the officers and privates for their companies to
meet on the 28th day of this instant, at the usual place, for their join-
ing in battalion, vt'ith their arms and accoutrements in good order; and
when so met, march immediately to the city of Philadelphia, and there
put yourself under the command of Major General Putnam; and you
are further required to make me an exact return of the name and
places of abode of such officers and privates as refuse to appear, with
their arms and accoutrements, at the time and place appointed, that
they may be dealt with as the resolve above referred to directs.
Given under my hand, at Head-Quarters, this 19th day of Decem-
ber, 1776.
GEO. WASHINGTON."
There is no certainty as to how many local companies joined
\\'ashington as a result of the order prior to the battle, but we
know that several local companies did participate in the battle.
386 EARLY HISTORY OF WASHINGTON'S CROSSING
There seem to be some doubt as to the identity of the messen-
ger who dehvered the note of warning to Colonel Rahl, the Hes-
sian commander at Trenton, on Christmas night, telling him that
Washington was on the way to attack him. This messenger
came to the house of Abraham Hunt where Colonel Rahl was
being entertained and asked for the colonel. The negro attend-
ant being unwilling to disturb the Colonel refused to admit him,
whereupon the messenger hurriedly wrote a brief note with a lead
pencil, which he asked the attendant to deliver to Colonel Rahl
personally. This note was delivered but the Colonel being in no
condition to trouble himself with notes, thrust the note in his
pocket, where it was found after his death.
General W. S. Stryker, in his Battles of Trenton and Princeton,
page 125, says that the messenger was "a Tory farmer from Bucks
county, Pennsylvania (whose name the German records give as
Wall, possibly the same royalist called Mahl who had visited Col.
Rahl a few days before." General Stryker does not make it very
clear as to what German records he refers and it is highly im-
probable that the note should have ever reached Germany or
German records, and if the general really saw it he would know
whether it was signed Wall or Mahl. Hon. Garret B. Wall, who
was elected governor of New Jersey in 1829, is the author of
the statement that the messenger was Moses Doan, the notorious
leader of the Doan outlaws of Bucks county, and this story has
been repeated by several historians who give the exact text of the
note as follows : "Washington is coming on you down the river.
He will be here afore long. Doan." It seems to be an estab-
lished fact that Moses Doan was on Long Island prior to the Bat-
tle of Long Island, and gave information to General Howe as to
the location of Washington's army. Several historians have also
stated that Moses and Abraham Doan were in the British camp
at Trenton some time prior to the battle, and since it is admitted
that Moses Doan acted as a messenger and spy in the service of
the British officers there seems to be no reason to doubt the truth
of the story so often reiterated that he was the messenger to
Col. Rahl on Christmas night.
However, many of the stories told in reference to the exploits
of the Doans are sensational and fictitious, including a large part
of the several pamphlets of William P. Seymour in 1853, Henry
EARLY HISTORY OF WASHINGTON'S CROSSING 387
Marrs in 1860 and John P. Rogers about 1870, and in spite of the
apparent authenticity of the note as above quoted, there will prob-
ably always remain some doubt as to the identity of the mes-
senger.
Did time permit, I would be glad to give you some account of
the other movements of General Washington and his army in and
through Bucks county including the encampment on the banks
of the Neshaminy near Hartsville, August 10 to 23, 1777, when
Howe was making his second and more successful attempt to
seize and occupy Philadelphia. There it was that the Marquis de
LaFayette first joined Washington's army, and there the stars and
stripes were first unfurled before the American army. However,
William J. Buck, the eminent historian of our county has pub-
lished in pamphlet form an excellent history of the Camp at
Neshatnlny and another paper on the same subject was read be-
fore a meeting of the Pennsylvania Society, Sons of the Revolu-
tion at their meeting held at Washington's headquarters there,
June 20, 1903, by Charles Henry Jones, and was printed in their
proceedings, and in separate pamphlet form. Either of these
pamphlets can be seen in any good historical library, including
that of the Bucks County Historical Society.
In concluding, I want to urge upon the \\'ashington Crossing
Park Commission the importance of their securing permanent
ownership of the site of the "encampment at Beaumont's" in-
cluding the camp-woods where Lord Sterling and other forces of
Washington's army were encamped for two weeks prior to the
Battle of Trenton, and from where they marched on Christmas
Day to this point to cross the Delaware and attack the Hessians.
This ownership should include the site of the graves of the pa-
triot soldiers on the bank of the Delaware and the old Thompson
house fast falling into decay, where Lord Stirling had his head-
quarters ; where Tom Paine wrote his immortal American Crisis;
where \\'ashington penned some of the most important letters of
that trying time in the struggle for American independence.
Outside of their historical association the house and adjoin-
ing barns are types of Colonial architecture now rapidly disap-
pearing and should be preserved. The original mill where the
food was ground for the use of the army had doubtless passed
away but the old mill on the same site represents the original and
should be preserved.
A Lost Stoveplate Inscription.
BY DR. HENRY C. MERCER, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Doylestown Meeting-, January 21, 1922.)
SINCE The Bible in Iron was written in 1914, several new
facts have come to light, concerning the history of the ancient
cast iron decorated stoves of the Pennsylvania-Germans,
among others the following :
The two stoveplates here shown are from our museum, and
the little one (Figure 1), with the upper left hand corner broken
ofif, No. 96, in The Bible in Iron, will always have a peculiar in-
terest for me, because it was the first stoveplate that our society
ever possessed, if not the first that I ever saw. Patrick Trainor
gave it to General Davis, probably before 1897, and for a long
time it stood in our old congested museum, in the Farm Bureau
Room at the courthouse in Doylestown, at which time I knew no
more about it than did General Davis.
With a good deal of difficulty, I made out that the inscription,
in German, was quoted from Romans XII-21, in Luther's Bible,
translated "Be not overcome of Evil," lacking the keyword of
the sentence, "overcome ;" also that the initials S. F. stood for the
old Berks county ironmaster, Samuel Flower. The date 1756
was plain, but the feature of intereset was the design that
showed me for the first time the emblematic holy flower garden,
seen under the arches of a cloister, so common on stove-
plates. Above all, the mysterious circle of rays of light, sup-
ported on legs forming the heads and the fore feet of sheep,
and enclosing symbolic flowers, which puzzled the late Dr.
Sachse, Rev. Dr. J. B. Stout, many Lutheran ministers, several
foreign antiquaries. Dr. Beck, author of the History of Iron, and
the late noted mediaeval student, Dr. Haefner Von Alteneck of
Munich, and which from that time to this, has remained an un-
solved enigma. But as this singular pattern does not concern my
story, and as it was by no means confined to this plate, but ap-
peared on dozens of others, I pass it by.
Besides, by the time I had described and illustrated this S. F.
plate in The Bible in Iron, it had become very common. We
Figui-L' 1
THE S. F. STOVEPLATE OF 1756.
BE NOT OVERCOME OF EVIL.
(Bible in Iron, No. 96.)
^S^n^lih
Figure 12
THIS IS THE YEAR IN WHICH RAGES
(Bible in Iron, No. 102.)
A LOST STOVEPLATE INSCRIPTION 389
found another pair of S. F. plates, also dated 1756, inscribed
"Ji-idge not that ye be not judged," from Matthew VII-1, Luther's
Bible (Bible in Iron, Nos. 98 and 99), so much like this, as to be
easily confused with it. Bucks county seemed full of these little
patterns, so much so, that it appeared either that Samuel Flower
must have sent many wagon loads into this region to vmdersell
Durham Furnace, or that if , as Mr. Ely has recently learned, Flow-
er had become part owner of Durham at that time, he might
have cast these stoves, not at Reading, but at Durham, and sold
them here in its neighborhood. At last we found several end
plates which completed the inscription, so that we were able to
set up and exhibit three entire stoves of this design. In fact, the
pattern had appeared so frequently, that by the time the eighteen
duplicates of it, now in our museum, had come into our posses-
sion, one by one, I had grown tired of it.
The large plate Figure 2, (No. 102 in Bible in Iron), called
"The Raging Year," presents a very different case. It first came
to my notice in 1897, when upon the information of Mr. I. J.
Stover, of New Britain, I found it lying as a gutter bridge or
path-pavement close to the house of Mrs. Anna Hofifman near
New Britain. It is larger than Figure 1, but shows the same
general pattern, the same cloistered flower garden, the same
mysterious halo or aureole with sheeps' legs above noticed, and
the same date, 1756, but the great interest of this specimen is,
and has long been, its inscription, in German, translated — "This
is the year in which rages — " \A^hat did it mean? What rages?
A storm, a pestilence, or Indians, in 1756? By the help of
Cruden's Concordance, I searched the Bible, wrote many letters,
and consulted many authorities, but in vain. The missing end
plate, if we could have found it, would have finished the inscrip-
tion, but no such plate appeared. There were other plates walled
up in the kitchen of the Hofifman house, but they were tops and
bottoms, and therefore blanks. I illustrated the unique relic
soon after, in my first small pamphlet on the subject, — "Deco-
rated Stove Plates of the Pennsylvania Germans," written in
1897.
Then we found a duplicate side plate in the smoking room of
Mr. Luckenbach, at Bethlehem, but still no end plate. By the
time I wrote TJw Bible in Iron, 1914, I believed it to be one
390
A LOST STOVEPLATE INSCRIPTION
of the rarest plates in the whole collection, and refrained from
discussing the meaning of its mysterious inscription, as to which
I was as much in the dark as ever. Why was this stove so very
rare, I wondered. Were the wooden moulds broken or lost at
the start, at the ancient furnace (Durham perhaps), that cast it?
or was there anything about the inscription that was false or
that would not bear repeating? Did the furnace only make it
during one year 1756, that it commemorated? I left the solu-
tion of these questions to chance, and at last ceased to concern
myself about them.
Eighteen years passed. Then another duplicate side plate ap-
peared under the following interesting circumstances.
Mr. A. H. Rice, dealer in antiquities, at Bethlehem, who had at
that time become an active collector of stoveplates, suddenly
informed me that he had found a very old deserted and ruinous
house in upper Bucks county, between Pleasant Valley and Rich-
landtown, from which one of the ancient jamb or five plate stoves
had been recently removed, that the hole in the wall which had
enclosed the stove still stood in its original condition, and that
there were several persons still living in the neighborhood, Avho
had seen the stove in use. I immediately, by telephone, arranged
Figure 6
STOVE IN ITS ORIGINAL POSITION.
A. The Lost End Plate. B. The Side Plate. C. The Stove Leg. D. The
Postament. E. The Stove-hole in the Wall. F. The Flue. G. The Kitchen
Fireplace. H. The Chimney. I. The Lintel Beam.
Figure 3
FIREPLACE OF THE HORNE HOUSE, SHOWING STOVE-HOLE.
The jamb stove-hole is shown in its original doorless condition in the
lower right corner at A. The stove-flue opening, in very dark shadow
under B. (Made from a very poor photograph.)
A LOST STOVEPLATE INSCRIPTION 391
an expedition, and a few days later, with Mr. W. E. Montague,
Mr. W. B. Montague, Mr. A. H. Rice, as guide, and Mr. F.
K. Swain, with a camera, visited the place in motor cars. The
house turned out to he the Home (previously Reasor or Reeser)
house, in which the late noted Pennsylvania-German scholar, Dr.
A. R. Home, had been born, described in General Davis's History
as one of the oldest dwellings in northern Bucks county, and which
as Mr. \y. S. Ely has recently proved, may have been built in
1746.1
The ancient stone smoke-stack, 6 feet wide by 10 feet long at
the base, laid in clay mortar, and tapering upwards through the
garret floor and roof of the building, divided the ground floor into
two rooms, the kitchen on the east, and the stove-room entered
by a door to the left of the smoke-stack on the west. The great
cooking fireplace built into the smoke-stack, and opening upon
the kitchen, had an opening 7 feet 8 inches wide by 5 feet 3 inches
high. It was 38 inches deep and had a wooden oaken champered
lintel 22 inches high by 14 inches thick, with a moulding planed
on its lower face corner. The stone wall back of the fireplace was
vertical and here we found in the lower right hand corner the
ancient stove-hole, 17 inches wide, 13 inches high to the crown
of arch, and 11 inches high at its sides, 15>^ inches above the
hearth, 24 inches from the right jamb (A Figure 3). This stove-
1 W^arren S. Ely has discovered that Joseph Unthank purchased the prop-
erty by patent from John Penn, Thomas Penn and Richard Penn, Patent
Book A, Vol. II, page 334, February 14, 1743. Also that Unthank held a
Quaker Meeting in a house then standing upon this land according to-
minutes of Richland Monthly Meeting of Friends, "On 2nd month 1743 the-
Friends in Springfield were granted to hold meeting at the houses of Joseph
Unthank and John Dennis for a period of six months. This was annually
renewed until 1755 when Joseph Unthank, being about to remove to North
Carolina, the meeting, previously held at his house, was ordered to be held',
at Thomas Adamson's on the adjoining farm."' Finally that according to
Deed Book 165, p. 583, Unthank sold the property to Abraham Reiser, a.
German IMennonite, on May 1, 1755.
From the above it might appear that the house now (1922) standing on:
the property was the house in which the Quaker Meeting was held in 1743..
On the other hand the house, now standing, is built in the old German style,
with the chimney not set against one of the gables in the English style, but
in the middle of the structure, and it seems very improbable that Unthank,
who could have found no house standing on the premises when he bought
the land in 1734, and who was an English Quaker, would have built a house
in this German manner. Second, the chimney now standing was constructed
in the first place for a German jamb stove, a kind of warming apparatus
that was probably unfamiliar to Unthank. Third, the jamb stove as original-
ly built into this chimney was dated 1756, and lastly because Reiser, who
was a German Mennonite, and familiar with such stoves, bought the property
in 1755, it is not likely that he would have discarded any possible earlier
stove then standing against the fireplace. Therefore we may reasonably
suppose that the "Raging Year Stove,'' traced to this house, was the first
stove ever used in it, and that Reiser built the house, now standing, either
in 1756, or the following year. See also Old Houses in Bucks County by
H. C. Mercer, Manuscript Vol. T, 1313. 1 to 11.
392 A LOST STOVEPLATE INSCRIPTION
hole penetrated the wall of the smoke-stack back of the fire, and
opened into the room beyond, called the stove-room. (See E Fig-
ure 6.) Eighteen inches over the center of this stove-hole in the
fireplace, was a small hole 5 inches high by 4 inches wide, which
as we found, passed entirely through the wall above the stove-
hole,, dipping slightly downward, so as to enter the wall in the
stove room, about 11 inches above the stove-hole, which smaller
hole I took to be a smoke passage made to increase the draught
of the stove. At this point, namely on the stove-room side of
the wall, what we saw was still more interesting. This was a
rim or projection, called the 'Testament," in the German stove
books, built of stones laid in clay, 3 feet 7 inches wide, by 4 feet
4 inches high, and extending outward from the wall 11>4 inches
(Figure 4 and DD Figure 6.) This projection or abutment en-
circled a square hole for the insertion of a stove — 21^ inches
wide by 28>^ inches high, and 10 inches above the floor, which
hole we found walled up as if after the removal of the stove
that had fit it. We pulled out this temporary wall, so as to
reveal ,the inside of the postament and the end of the stove-
hole proper, which latter was here of the same size as it was
in the fireplace (E Figure 6), arched on the top, and too
small to fit any stove, but the bottom of which coincided with
the bottom of the postament hole. (Figure 5.) The stove there-
fore under discussion, had not been thrust or walled into this
original hole in the wall, but had been held in place entirely by
the postament, which we found was not a part of the original wall,
but had been built against it, and was now sagging away from it,
leaving a wide crack, and which, therefore, might have been
built of any size to fit any stove. After observing these facts we
found to our great surprise, that this heavy postament was built
directly upon the now rotting wooden floor of the room, without
any continuous pier to support it in the cellar, and we finally
convinced ourselves that this particular floor was not in its
original condition, but had been raised after the building was
constructed, and as we concluded, about the year 1800, when a
new wang had been added to the house. This proved that the
postament, as we saw it, had replaced a still older one, and that
in raising the floor and rebuilding this postament, the old stove
must have been taken down and set up again. (See Figure 6.)
Figure 4
THE HORNE HOUSE IN SPRINGFIELD TOWNSHIP.
Showing postament witli hole walled up.
A LOST STOVEPLATE INSCRIPTIOX 393
Before and after making these measurements, we found, ques-
tioned, or heard of several persons in the neighborhood, who had
seen or used the old stove in place, as follows :
a — Mrs. Mary Ann Walp, who had used the stove in 1851.
b & c — James and Henry Home, who, as boys, lived in the house.
d — Mrs. Rhinehardt, sister of the Home brothers.
e — Samuel S. Moyer, who saw the stove in place seventy years be-
fore when coming to the place to make cider.
f — Dr. J. J. Ott, of Pleasant Valley, who saw the stove in position in
1896, and had remeinbered it for twenty years before.
g — Mrs. Foulke, of Richlandtown, who had lived in the house thirty-
five years before when the stove was standing.
h — Thomas H. Wieder, 318 North Ave., Warren, Ohio, who saw the
stove in place in 1868.
It appeared from the evidence of these witnesses here given in
full in a foot note,- without correction, as originally written
- a. Inf. Mrs. Mary Ann Walp, of Richlandtown, seen by us that day at a
quilting party at her daughters in Quakertown, Pa. Used by Mrs. Walp
64 years ago. Long sticks used and as burned out pushed them in. She is
sure there were iron legs, not sure of design. Sure they were not of pottery.
Not sure about any bolts from top to bottom. Her brother, Amandus Fluke,
of Quakertown, her sister, Elizabeth Benner, Pleasant Valley, 80 years, her
sister Lidy Ann Gross, Lower Richland, 75 or 65 saw it.
The stove was in use 58 years ago. She is now 73 years old and was 9
years when she went there, and stayed there * years, or 15 years old when
she left. Mrs. Benner is the oldest. She lives with her son, Tillman Ben-
ner, an undertaker, at Pleasant Valley.
b. Mr. James Home. Came to Home House. We saw him later at Mrs.
Rheinhardt's. Remembers seeing the stove at the Foulke house, w^hitewashed,
also saw the bolt but thinks there were two bolts on stove. Also one
wooden leg, bucket shape made of plank 2 inches thick, 1 foot wide. Don't
remember using it. He and brother used to jump up on stove with no legs
under it. A rod ran back into fireplace with a pin to hold stove in place.
c. Inf. of Mr. Henry Home — Seen at Mrs. Rheinhardt's house — Says that
a long bolt ran horizontally from fireplace side through postament across
top of stove so as to meet top of bolt on end plate at its top and that this
had a wedge slip on fireplace side and also that similar bolt ran out at
bottom of stove to fireplace.
d. Inf. of Mrs. Rheinhardt. Visited her at her house on main road be-
tween Home house and Pleasant Valley. Wall was larger at one time. Mrs.
Rheinhardt's father (Reuben Home) renewed half of wall extending to left
towards wooden pannelling. She remembers 32 years ago that her father
used stove to warm room in winter. Johnson Yerkes, formerly reporter
South Bethlehem Globe, used to come to house. Her brother slept in room
when stove was used. Formerly used for working butter and storing milk.
One plate taken by Thomas Wieder, Warren, Ohio, which was cracked —
used over a well. Her father took stove apart.
e. Inf. Mr. Samuel S. Moyer. Seen at the house. He saw the stove as a
boy in its natural state about 70 years ago, when coming to make cider.
Does not remember seeing legs under stove.
f. Dr. Ott of Pleasant Valley, who met us at the house, saw stove in
position from 1876 to 1896 and had frequently seen it before in position for
20 years earlier. When seen no legs and whitewashed. Weight of wall pre-
vented falling of stove. The room in which stove protruded was used as a
junk room. The house is built of stone, walls are laid in clay mortar and
very heavily whitewashed. Ceiling beams are sawed and lathed with lath
heavily plastered. Floor above 15 inch boards — two wall closets in room,
an old shelf and part of wall jianeled on side of fireplace. House is rotting.
The postament had not been built at time of construction of fireplace. Later
constructed showing crack between it and the wall. The original opening in
postament for insertion of stove is now (August, 1915) walled up. Rev.
A. R. Home owned house when stove was in position. He sold it to James
394 A LOST STOVEPLATE IXSCRTPTIOX
down by us, that the stove had been in regular use from 1850 to
1876 ; that very long sticks reaching through the wall from
the fireplace side and sometimes with their ends resting upon
chairs, had been used to heat the stove; that after the death
of Dr. Home's mother in 1876, and the sale of the house, the
stove had fallen into disuse, but had remained standing, and
whitewashed like the walls, until about 1896, when it was pulled
down. We further learned that as late as 1851, the stove was
raised on iron legs, but later rested on a wooden prop, sawed
out of a two inch plank, one foot wide, at the top, and some-
what less at the bottom ; that finally the legs had disappeared
and the stove had projected from the postament, entirely with-
out legs ; and th^t either one or two long iron bolts running along
the top and bottom of the stove, from fastenings upon its end
plate, back through the wall and into the fireplace on the kitchen
side, had at last served to hold the stove in position without legs.
During our investigations, Mr. Rice, who had been hunting
stoveplates, found a duplicate of the "Raging Year" plate (Fig-
ure 2) at a neighboring farm house, which I then bought for the
museum, without connecting it in any way with our researches
at the Hofne house. Meanwhile, in examining the ashes of the
kitchen fire place, we found several fragments either of the plate
illustrated in Figure 1, namely the S. F. of 1756 "Be not over-
come of Evil" or of the other S. F. of the same date, "Judge not."
This last discovery seemed to rob the expedition of much of its
interest, for notwithstanding the fact that Mrs. Foulke had said
that she remembered seeing these fragments in the ashes when
the original stove was in place (See note 2), I was convinced
either that she was mistaken, or that these pieces represented
burnt out and replaced parts of the original stove, for which as
Shelley of Richland, Pa. Shelley sold to Reuben Home. The latter tore out
stove about ZO years ago. Then Dr. Ott bought it of Home, and neglected
to take it away.
g. Mrs. Foulke, whom we visited at her home in Richlandtown, had lived
in the Home house. Saw the jamb stove standing but not in use. The five
plates of the stove now in possession of Dr. Ott, Pleasant Valley. Two left
side plates of "Judge Not' were lying in the fireplace as pavement in
August, 1915. Mrs. Foulke remembers the stove protruding into room back
of fireplace, so built into wall that a ledge or butment or shelf extended
over it and down side upon which shelf clock, jugs and various objects were
placed. She says that she was told that long sticks of wood were used in
firing stove and pushed in, long ends of which would rest on chair or other
object, but she does not remember what kind of legs under stove. Mrs.
Foulke don't remember any iron door on fireplace side. She remembers date
1756 on stove.
At that time stove was whitewashed. Dr. Ott of Pleasant Valley pulled
the stove down. In winter time used as sleeping room where stove was.
Figure 5
JAMB STOVE-HOI.E IX THE HORNE HOUSE.
Showing podtament after removal of walled up stove-hole.
A LOST STOVEPLATE INSCRIPTION 395
the commonest of all the stoves found in Bucks county, I had
long, since, as before remarked, lost interest.
So much for our tirst visit to the Home house. Our notes
and photographs, coming too late for insertion in The Bible in
Iron, had established some interesting facts as to the construc-
tion and use of the ancient stoves, but we had found no new-
plate or inscription of interest.
Three more years had passed, when in the summer of 1918, I
began the investigation of the architectural remains of Bucks
county, namely: houses, barns, wells, springhouses. caves, etc
embodied in five volumes of manuscript notes, now in the library
of our museum. These researches brought us again to the Home
house. We photographed it, studied the old and new wings, ex-
amined all the doors, latches, hinges, staircases, floors, rafters,
windows, etc., and came to the conclusion that the old wing
was built about 1756. and that the new wing was added about
1800 (See note 1). But the building, although recently roofed
by its then owner, Dr. Brown, of Cambridge, Mass., owing to
the weakness of its clay laid walls, was as we saw in very bad
condition, and must soon, unless reinforced in some way. fall
to the ground. Its great historical interest induced by friend,
Mr. R. P. Hommel, of Lehigh University, Bethlehem, to buy
it in 1921, and begin the work (interrupted by his present ab-
sence in China) of restoring and saving it. Then it was,
that our first thought, after propping the walls and boarding
up the doors and windows, was to restore the stove, so that
one house at least would exist in Pennsylvania, showing one of
these ancient stoves still in its original position, and still in use,
when Air. Hommel chose to build a fire in it. At this point,
my special story, interrupted by these digressions, again begins.
\\'hat had become of the five original plates? It was desirable
to find them if possible, but in this connection I remembered that
there was some difficulty in the original notes as to Dr. Ott's evi-
dence. Had he or had he not removed them from the premises?
Unfortunately he had died in the meantime, but we visited his
widow at Pleasant Valley, and wdien she told us that she was
certain that her husband had never brought the plates home,
and when no sign of them appeared in her barn, wood house, or
out buildings, we gave up the search, but were not discouraged.
396 A LOST STOVEPLATE INSCRIPTION
because I had just found (through the help of Mr. Montague),
in Berks county, a complete example of this S. F. stove, which
would do almost as well for the restoration as the original itself.
Just as we were about to bring this Berks county stove to the
place, it occurred to me to write to Mr. Wieder of Warren, Ohio,
who according to Mrs. Rhinehardt, had carried off one of the
original plates, and might have them all. His answers to my
letters, however, (See foot note 3) entirely upset our restoration
project, for although he told us that he had not taken any of the
plates away with him, he proved by sending us a drawing of
one of the original sides, which he had copied on the spot, that
we had been working upon the wrong stove, and that the stove
as seen by Mr. Wieder, and which originally stood in the old
COMMUNICATION FROM THOMAS H. WIEDER.
3 I am 67 years old. I lived with David Home one winter, in 1868, in the
brick house on the same farm. This old house was the first farm house,
man by the name of Reaser used to own it. He had one daughter. She
was born 1798. David L. Home born 1813 was married to this only daughter
of Reaser. They were the parents of Abraham Home the only son, a highly
educated man who died at Allentown a few years ago. This David Ij. Hoi'iie
built the brick house after he was too old to work the farm. The people
that used to work the farm used to live in the old house after David Home
died, 1868, or rather his widow, 1876. Reuben Home bought the old house
with a small acreage of ground to it while he lived there after 1876.
This stove was taken down by him and I used to see the plates lay around
the yard. It must have been there that they had one to cover a well. There
were five plates, two sides, top, and bottom, and back end. The back end
was held together with two long bolts, the front end was built in the wall.
This old part of the house, I am sure. Mrs. David L. Home told me, was
built when the stove was put up in 17 56. The new part wa.s built around
1800. or not far from it. I remember quite well how the old house looked
inside. Big cider press back of the house or on the back side rather. A big
log barn about 100 feet away from the house towards Pleasant Valley and
a big wagon shed with corn crib on one side. I just remember how the
whole thing looked like in 1868. I make trips out that way every year.
Last summer I missed to call around Springfield. All my people are dead
that used to live around there. Three of Reuben Homes sons are living yet.
They ought to be able to tell a whole lot about the place. Let me know if
you intend to make new plates to put this stove back. If I was there I could
tell you very near how large it was in the room. It used to make a lot of
heat but had to go out into the kitchen to see the fire.
That inscription on the plate I tried hard to find out what it means, but
was unable to find out. I could send you the corner I broke off and you
could see how heavy the plates were. There weren't many foundries in the
United States to make plates those days. Have a few Indian relics that
were found around there and quite a few old stories that the old people told
me happened when they were young. Things have changed wonderful since
then. In 1835 the snow was so deep that they couldn't see the fences, they
could driv the horses over the top, drive in any direction. In the spring of
1868 the sky was so full of chicken hawks for two days that the sun couldn't
shine through, when nobody knew where they came from or where they
went to. The same year the stars dropped so bad some people got scared,
of course I was one of them.
There used to be an old land turtle on that farm it had the date cut on
its belly, before 1800, I seen it once. I often wonder if its there yet. An
old schoolhouse used to stand close to the house where you seen Mrs. Rein-
hart She is dead. Died with the flue. The big Weierbacks boys of those
days used to go to Sunday school, also Joe and Charles Mumbaur. It was
also the place where Abraham Home learned his first lesson. I seen this
schoolhouse before it was torn down. Mrs. David L. Home used to tell me
some great things that happened in this schoolhouse. I guess I better stop
A LOST STOVEPLATE INSCRIPTION 397
Horne house, was not at all the S. F. of 1756 (Figure 1) but
the "Raging Year" of 1756. (Figure 2) "Dis ist das air darin
witet." He wrote the words very clearly, so that there could be no
mistake about the well-remembered inscription. The stove,
therefore, that we wanted was not one of the commonest but one
of the rarest ones yet known, to which no end plate had ever
been found. No restoration of it was possible, so I dismissed
the plan from my mind, and turned back again to the old riddle
suggested by the letter of the lost meaning of the broken words,
and wrote again to this one man alive, namely Mr. Wieder, who
I thought could solve it. I addressed him in polite terms, about
as follows :
"My dear Friend:
Your inscription is all very well, but there is not enough of it. Where
is the rest of it? Why did you not take down what you saw on the
end plate, which would have completed the sentence?"
Mr. Wieder wrote back (contradicting his note No. 3) to the
eflfect that the stove had already been pulled down and was in
pieces when he copied the inscription, and that there was no end
plate. He had brought no plate to Ohio, but only a little broken
corner which he had carried off as a memento, and sent by sepa-
ate enclosure to me with his letter. \\'as he right? If not. it then
occurred to me for the first time that a measurement of the
stove-hole in the postament at the Horne house would settle the
question, but when a few days later, Mr. Hommel, went there to
take the dimensions, he found that in the meantime the whole
postament, weakened by our removal of the wall which had
masked its opening, had crumbled down and lay in ruins upon
the floor. Fortunately, however, our obscure pencil notes, in the
original note book, giving the dimensions, were still legible, and
till I hear from you again. You might think I was trying to write a book
about Springfield. Of course I love Springfield. I spent my boyhood days
there. Rev. Bert Hottle was a school mate of mine.
Yours truly.
THOS. H. WIEDER,
318 North Avenue,
Warren, Ohio.
Warren, Ohio, Aug. 11, 1920.
Gentlemen,
I got your letter asking about the old wall stove at the Horne house.
Yes, I warmed myself at this stove more than once in the winter of 1868.
I am going to Sprinfield in a very short time and if you were there I could
tell you a whole lot about that place. I could write to you the time I will
be there and you could come there then I could explain all I knew. Let me
know about it. I guess I am the only living person that knows about it.
THOS. H. WIEDER.
398 A LOST STOVEPLATE IXSCRIPTIOX
they proved that the S. F. stove, which we had been considering,
was altogether too small for the postament hole, but that the
Raging Year stove (Figure 2) fitted it exactly. Mr. Wieder was
right, and my own hasty conclusions in 1915 wrong.
Mr. Wieder's letters had been interesting, as fixing the identity
of the stove, but he had missed its front plate and as far as the
meaning of its mysterious inscription as shown on figure 2 was
concerned, he had told us nothing.
Just as I was about to again dismiss the subject from my mind,
another glimmer of light, somewhat in the nature of a "will-o-
the-wisp," was thrown upon our researches by Mr. Hommel,
who, not long before his departure for China, discovered an
obituary notice of Dr. A. R. Home in the National Educator of
Allentown, Pa., for January, 1903 (See note 4) which after de-
scribing the Home house and supposing that it had been built
partly for defense against the Indians, said that the latter fact
was evidenced by an inscription on an old stoveplate in the
house, which read — "Dies is das Jahr die Inchen war, 1764,"
meaning by literal translation — "This is the year the Indians
were," or the year of the Indian attack. The old puzzle resur-
rected by Mr. Wieder, rose before me, and for a moment the
solution seemed within reach. The newspaper was wrong, yet
right. The sentence quoted by the writer could not have been
invented. The date was wrong, and the inscription followed the
original, only in part. It gave the meaning commemorating the
French and Indian War of 1756, but with impossible words.
One of which however stuck in my memory, the curious term
"Inchen," the Pennsylvania German for Indian, and used, I re-
membered in connection with the "Hilltown Busts," described by
* National Educator, Allentown, Pa., Jan., 1903.
From obituary of Rev. A. R. Home, D.D.
He was born March 24, 1834, on the family homestead, in Springfield town-
ship, Bucks county, as a son of David L. Home and his wife, Mary, a
bom Reasor. On both father and mother's side he was descended from the
Pennsylvania Germans, a race that has helped to make Pennsylvania what
it is today. His grandfather, Abraham Reasor, an early settler in Spring-
field township, possessed 184 acres of land, located on Cook's creek. The
one story part of the old house bears the date of 1843. In 1760 John and
Thomas Penn conveyed to him 150 additional acres. This property has re-
mained in the family, therefore, for more than 150 years. The house is still
standing and is the oldest in the township. Its thick walls show that it
dates back to the time when the woods resounded with the war whoop of
the Indian, and that it was not only intended for shelter, but also for de-
fence. That such it had been is evidenced by the inscription on an old
stove plate which read: "Dies is das Jahr die Inchen war, 1764." meaning
by a literal translation, "This is the year the Indians were,' or the year of
the Indian attack.
A LOST STOVEPLATE INSCRIPTION 399
Rev. Dengler, in our Proceedings, Vol. II, page 634. As at this
ignis fatitus any further research seemed hopeless, I again tried
to drop the subject from my thoughts, though without knowing
it, it appeared that I had got too deely involved to escape. An-
other year passed, when, one night, the telephone bell rang. Mr.
A. H. Rice was calling from Bethlehem. He had found a re-
markable end stove-plate near Brownsburg, Pa., with an inscrip-
tion upon it, that had bafifled all his Pennsylvania-German friends,
who, one after the other, had come to see it day after day, in his
store, and tried in vain, to decipher it. He would sell it for
twelve dollars. "Send it down," I said, and he sent it. There it
is. Figure 7. It came one afternoon, and I began working upon
it that night, with a student's lamp. The inscription appeared to
be entirely new. As you see, it is badly rusted, but when I saw
the last word SCHAF (meaning sheep) I was again misled,
for I thought I had at last found a clue to the sheep's
head design, on so many of the plates, which, as I have said, had
defied elucidation for the last twenty-five years. Yet how could
this be solved in three words? For there were only three upon
the plate. I turned to the preceding word, the last syllable of
which you see is "schin," with the preceding letters rusted away.
What could schin mean? I held the lamp up and down at va-
rious angles; went back to my study, hunted (in vain) through
the Bible concordance and my German dictionaries, and without
being a German scholar, concluded that there was no word in the
whole German language ending in the syllable schin. The first
word of the plate was gone altogether, as you see.
Up to this point, the relic had in no way connected itself
either with the Home house, Mr. Wieder, or the lost inscription
on Figure 2 which is the subject of my paper.
It was getting late. I was burning the midnight oil, and I felt
a headache coming on, but one more look at the schin. And then,
out of the "lumber room of memory," suddenly flashed the word
Inschin, suggested, no doubt, by the Allentown newspaper article.
A good old Pennsylvania-German word, but phonetic, of course,
therefore, in no dictionary. A thing for the ear, not the eye.
No wonder it defied Mr. Rice's friends. With it rose up recol-
lections, now a year old, of the Home house, and the long lost
meaning of the mysterious sentence on the Raging Year plate.
400 A LOST STOVEPLATE INSCRIPTION
(Figure 2). Here it was at last. But stop, what of the final
word schaff The Allentown writer had it zvar. But he was
wrong? His zv was certainly sch. Still — schaf — sheep — Indian
sheep — nonsense ! The Indian had nothing to do with sheep.
The sheep is a European animal brought here by the white man.
"Go to bed, my friend," said I to myself, "you are in bad con-
dition, you will be awake all night." One more guess. The
final F. The Allentown man makes it R. Suppose he is right.
Suppose the upper loop and lower tail of an original R has
been rusted away here so that this apparent F is no F but
R — then — SCHAR. The well known, clean cut, simple
German word struck me like a bullet. It means in EngHsh,
host, war-band, or war-party. At last, I had found it, after
twenty-five years. Thus, by means of the only end plate ever
heard of, the long lost meaning came. 1756 was a bad year, one
of the years of the French and Indian War, the year in which
General Braddock was defeated, the year in which the Indians,
after slaying their own brethren, at Gnadenhutten, attacked the
Bethlehem stockade, terrorized the Lehigh valley, scalped, and
killed in their own fashion, all the white men within their reach.
One of the mould-carvers, perhaps at Durham Furnace, thought
he would commemorate this terrible year with this stove. DIS
1ST DAS JAHR DARIN WITET DER INCHIN SCHAR—
translated — "This is the year in which rages the Indian War
band."
At last I lit a candle, blew out the student's lamp, and went
to bed.
LATER INFORMATION.
Just as this paper was going- to press, a singular sequence to the above
narrative has occurred. On August 20, 1926, Mr. Joseph B. Sanford de-
scribed to me (over the telephone) the side plate of the Raging Year stove,
cast with a circular top, i. e. transformed into a fireback, just found by him,
walled in the back of a jiarlor fireplace in an old farmhouse once owned by
the late Hon. Hampton W. Rice, about two miles north of Paxsons Corner
in Solebury Township. To my knowledge no such altered stoveplate-fireback
had yet appeared, and I supposed the specimen to be a recent recast made
by some modern artistic tenant of the house. I therefore visited the house
on August 27th. with Mr. Sanford, when we learned from the present tenant,
Mr. Francis C. Pitting, that the fireplace, opened by him, had been walled
up over the plate many years before the days of artistic tenants, jDrobably
about 1850-70, that the house was built before 1776, and that an old neigh-
borhood-tradition, vouched for a vista cut through intervening woods to per-
mit signalling in ca.«e of an Indian attack. This eleventh-hour unique relic
is therefore the chief plate of the Raging Year stove, cast into a fireback, to
commemorate the Indian terror of 1756. W^as it cast for general sale to the
threatened pioneers by the same furnace that cast the stove? But why in
German in Engh.sh-settled Solebury? V^hy was the inscription not completed
when the pattern was re-shaped? Does it substantiate the forest-signal
tradition of fear in lower Bucks County, when real danger only existed in
what was then upper Bucks County, namely about Bethlehem and the
Minisinks, in 1756?
Figure 7
THE IXDIAX WAR PLATE.
(The lost end Plate.)
Museum No. 17947.
The Making of Felt Hats.
BY HORACE M. MANN, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Doylestown Meeting-, January 21, 1922.)
SOME kind of covering for the head, either for defense or
ornament, appears to have been generally worn in all ages
and countries where the inhabitants have made any progress
in the arts of civilized life. Hats may be of many different ma-
terials, shapes, sizes and colors and in fact are as numerous in
kind as are the various divisions and subdivisions of mankind.
An attempt to give the history of the hat would require a volume
in itself. It is only hats made of fur worked into a compact mass
known as felt that I intend to discuss. Even in this connection,
the method of producing the material will be dealt with alone, to
the entire exclusion of any effort to enlarge upon the forms of
headgear into which this felted fur might be worked.
The whole process of making felt, whether for hats or other
purposes, is based upon conditions which result from the matting
together and- intimate adhesion of certain animal fibres that are
so marked as to fit them for felting. On examination under a
strong miscroscope the hairs, or filaments of wool, appear ser-
rated or covered with jagged edges overlaping each other in a
manner resembling that of the scales of a fish. On this condition
of the hair lies the foundation of felting. In hat making the furs
most generally used are, beaver, rabbit and hare, seal, mole, and
sometimes, lambs' wool.
In felting any of these materials together, the first object of
the workman is to obtain the most complete separation of the
fibres, and to dispose a layer of them in every possible direction
with regard to each other ; this is effected by means of bowing.
The fur is first well washed, carded and thoroughly dried. The
"stock" or amount of fur necessary to make the desired hat is
weighed out and placed on an enclosed bench called a "hurl" or
"hurdle", about three feet high by five feet long and four feet
deep. Tvn^o sides of this bench are divided from the next work-
man by partitions running from the floor to the ceiling, the back
is formed by the side of the main building and the front is open
402 THE MAKING OF FELT HATS
for the workman to stand before and operate the bow. These
partitions are placed to keep out as much air as possible because
after the fur has been bowed for some time it becomes so light
that a pufif of wind would blow some of it away. Each bench
or hurdle is lighted by a small window in the wall of the main
building and the rear of the hurdle. In each hurdle the bow is
suspended by a stout cord from the ceiling. This bow is a strong
pole seven feet long by two inches in diameter, to which are
fixed two bridges, the upper one, nearest the window, called the
"cock", and the lower one, nearest the workman, the "breech".
The cock is a quarter round piece of wood seven inches by six
inches wide ; the breech is a rectangular piece of wood eleven
inches long by seven inches wide. Over these bridges, the cock
and the breech, is stretched a piece of catgut in the same manner
as a string on a vioiln bow. This string is plucked by a "bow-
pin", a small stick six to seven inches long with a knob at each end.
The workman, with his allowance of fur or stock on the hurdle
before him, grasps the bow horizontally with his left hand, plac-
ing the bow-string near the right hand edge of the material and
gives it a pluck with the bow-pin. The string immediately flies
back amongst the fur, scattering a part before it to a distance
proportioned to the force with which it was pulled. By re-
peated strokes the whole is thus subjected to the bow; and this
bowing is continued until all the filaments of each hair are per-
fectly opened and dilated, and having thus fallen, together in all
possibe directions, form a thin fluffy mass about three feet long
by eighteen inches wide and some three to four inches thick. The
quantity thus treated is called a "batt".
When the batt is sufficiently bowed it is covered with a large
piece of soft leather. The workman, taking the "basket", con-
sisting of sixteen very light, open, straight bars of wood, joined
together by three heaver transvere bars, the central one of which
is somewhat higher than the other two to form a grip for the
workman, the whole sixteen inches long by fifteen inches wide,
presses gently and with a slight sliding motion over this leather
and the batt of fur underneath to make it mat together sufficient
for him to handle. Then he removes the leather and carefully
folds the batt into two or four folds (called "crozes" in Bethel,
Connecticut), and following a pattern, according to the form of
THE MAKING OF FELT HATS 403
hat desired, he trims with a smaU short bladed knife or pulls
away with his fingers the part not needed so that when he
opens it out he has two or four triangular pieces. These he
takes next to a kettle of hot water to be sized or felted together.
This kettle (called by the hatters of Danbury and Bethel, Con-
necticut, a "steamboat kettle", or a "sizing kettle"), is a large
copper or brass kettle, permanently erected on a brick or stone
flue, with an interior, circular compartment, open at the bottom
except for a grate. This compartment is soldered to the bottom
of the main kettle and held firm by bars running from the rim
of the interior compartment to the rim of the main kettle. In
this interior compartment a fire is built of wood, charcoal or soft
coal which heats the water contained between this inner com-
partment and the walls of the main kettle. This kettle is sur-
rounded with a permanent wooden bench, divided into four,
six or eight sections for a similar number of workmen. The
outside edge of this bench is a few inches higher than the rim of
the kettle, sloping gradually until the inside edge of the bench
meets the rim of the kettle so that the water will drain back
into the kettle. The kettle and bench together is called "a bat-
tery". To clean the fire in the fire-pot of the kettle the work-
man pours cold water on the fire forming steam which blows the
ashes down through the grate into the flue underneath the kettle.
To soften the water some oatmeal or bran is added to facilitate
the felting.
Into this kettle of hot water the edges of the batt are dipped
and very carefully united to form a cone-shaped hat body. The
whole batt is then, dipped in the hot water and drawn out on the
bench where it is rubbed together and rolled with a pair of wood-
en rollers, called "pins", about fourteen inches long by two
inches in diameter and tapering toward each end. The workman
wears, over the palm of each hand, a pad of stout, oak tanned
leather, soaked for a long time in urine, to protect his hands from
the heat. A coarse bristle brush, called a "sizing brush", is used
to brush away any dirt and to sprinkle additional water on the
work as it is needed.
After this operation has proceeded far enough to produce felt
it is again dampened with clean warm water, and closely ex-
amined for holes or thin spots in the felt, and, on any of these
404 THE MAKIXG OF FELT HATS
parts found to be deficient, a little fur is added and worked into
the main body by the thumb of the workman. A quantity of fine
cut cotton, which will not felt, is sometimes added to the fur
to make the nap raise better. When this cotton is to be added
to the fur the whole is beaten by two round sticks, twenty-seven
inches long, called "beating-up sticks". The piece of felt is now
a cone-shaped body, covered with numerous hairs standing up
over the surface. These hairs were, in the beginning of the hat
making industry, pulled out by women by means of a pair of
tweezers, much like doctors use, but later were cut off by means
of a large heavy bladed knife. The cone is folded double and
laid on the knee of the workman, who wears a heavy leather
apron or pad to protect his knee, and shaved downward with
the "shaving knife". This knife is about fourteen inches long
with a heavy sharp blade, nine inches long and an inch and a half
wide. The intended hat still possesses the conical shape first given
it, capable, however, with a moderate degree of force of being
extended in every direction. The batt is dampened with warm
water and the edge turned up all around the width desired for
the brim of the hat. It is then folded in half and violently pulled
with both hands in opposite directions at the point of the cone ; it
is opened and folded the other way and again pulled in the same
manner. This is continued until on being opened the point has
been worked into a flat crown. The flat portion is then placed
on a wooden hat block and the sides forced down over the block
and tied tight at the bottom with a stout cord. The crown is
pressed out into better shape, and the brim, which has a tendency
to curl, is flattened by wetting. At the part where the brim is
bent away from the sides, the line is made distinct and sharp by
means of a wooden block, four inches long, three and a half
inches wide and two inches thick, shaved off to a sharp edge.
This block is called a "tollocker" and is used in many ways in
shaping the hat over the block. A thin rectangular piece of
copper, five by four inches, called a "trench", is also used to
scrape off the surplus moisture and to assist in shaping the hat.
The hat, approaching some form and shape, still has the edge of
the brim ragged and uneven. To make this edge even and smooth
a "jack" is used with a wooden guide shaped the same as the
circumference of the hat block with an adjustable blade which
THE MAKING OF FELT HATS 405
can be set at any desired distance from the inside edge of the
brim and thus regulate the width of the brim. This jack is laid
on the brim with the guide against the hat block and drawn
around the block so that the blade will trim away the rim at the
same distance all around the hat. The man working a hat over
the block wears pads of rubber with an incision in each for his
thumb. These pads or gloves protect his hands as he presses
and draws the hat down over the block. The hat, being shaped
to the satisfaction of the operator, is drawn from the block and
thoroughly dried before the final steps of stiiTening and finishing.
After the hats are dried, the next operation they undergo is
that of stiffening. The hat is dipped into shellac, cut by means
of sal-soda. As much of the hat as is desired to be stiffened is
dipped into this shellac, then drawn out and the surplus shellac
scraped off with the copper trench, described before, while the
hat was being block. Common salt is now added to the shellac
remaining on the hat to set it so that, if necessary hereafter to
dip it in hot water the shellac will not melt and come out of the
hat. The degree of stiffness can be regulated by the amount of
shellac left on the hat.
The dry hat, after stiffening is very hard and rigid and of an
irregular shape ; preparatory to finishing, therefore, it is again
blocked. For this purpose it is necessary to soften the shellac
which is done by hanging the hat over the steam from a hot
kettle of water and to keep it soft while being finished, a little
hot water is sprinkled over it by means of a soft brush. It is
again drawn over the hat block, shaped by hand and pressed by
means of a short heavy flat-iron or goose called a "shell". This
shell has a hollow bottom wherein is placed a red hot chunk of
cast iron called a "slug". Each shell has several of these slugs
which are kept hot while the shell is in use and as fast as one
cools off in the shell another hot one takes its place. With this
shell the hat is pressed and smoothed. The motion always being
in one direction so that the nap will lay in one direction and be-
come smooth and glossy. If the nap is stubborn and will not lay
right or as more often happens contains some coarse hairs of
uneven length, it is combed or carded with a small card resembling
a miniature wool card and brushed with a soft brush.
The hat is now shaped, the brim is curved to suit the style, the
406 THE MAKING OF FELT HATS
nap is smooth and polished and all that remains to be done is to
put in the lining, the sweat band and outside ribbon or hat band,
all of which is not part of the felter's work and is done by other
persons, mostly women.
These methods of producing a felt hat are not those practiced
in regular hat factories but such as w-ere followed in small local
shops of a few workmen. In and around Danbury and Bethel,
Connecticut, a farmer would gather his hired men or a few neigh-
bors and start making felt hats during the slack winter months.
His shop, where this work was followed, was called a "catgut",
and the practice of this irregular hat making, "catgutting".
All the above processes were explained to me by Mr. George
B. Fairchild, Mr. Samuel Judson and Mr. E. Bevans, all of
Bethel, Connecticut, and all old hatters, on the occasion of my
visit in Bethel in search of the tools of the old felt hat maker
in May, 1918. All of the tools mentioned, except the "steam-
boat kettle", were found and are now in the museum of the
Bucks County Historical Society. I have consulted, TJic Circle
of The Mechanical Arts, Thomas Martin, Civil Engineer, Lon-
don, 1813, and The Book of English Trades and Library of the
Useful Arts", London, 1818, to refresh my memory on any point
that I was uncertain or had forgotten.
Passing Events (Paper No. 2).
BY FRANK K. SWAIN, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Doylestown Meeting, January 21, 1922.)
This paper Is a continuation of Paper No. 1, read before this society on
January 15, 1921. See page 324 ante.
TELEPHONES — Although several attempts had been made
before 1875 to invent a telephone all proved unsatisfactory
and were not in use. In that year Prof. Alexander G. Bell,
with the help of Thomas A. Watson, a young electrician, was
trying to perfect the "Harmonic Telegraph" so that six Morse
messages could be sent over a single wire, at the same time,
without interference. They worked in the garret of a little
house on Court street, Boston, and on the night of June 2, 1875,
the whole apparatus went wrong, the vibrators stopped working
and in order to start them again Mr. Watson plucked them sev-
eral times. Mr. Bell who was tuning the instruments in an
adjoining room, cried out, as he rushed into the room, "Watson,
Watson, what have you done. Don't change anything." The
plucking was repeated several times and this and the continuous
current gave Bell the needed hint. According to Watson the
great secrets of nature are held by little demons who thwart every
effort to wrest them away. But on this night, becoming more
careless, or satisfied in their own power and not measuring Prof.
Bell's mind, they lifted the curtain for only a second and by the
chance plucking of the wires revealed to him what he must do
to successfully carry the human voice over an electric wire. In
a second he understood why the others had failed. Their method
was too complicated and a much simpler arrangement was possi-
ble. There was no sleep in the Court street house that night.
They immediately gave up the harmonic telegraph and started to
make a telephone.
Then followed weeks of experiments and disappointments
until one day the thing worked. The first message ever sent by
telegraph was, "What Hath God Wrought," and the first mes-
sage sent over the Bell telephone was, "Mr. Watson please come
here, I want you," and this was sent by Prof. Bell himself and
received bv Mr. Watson.
408 PASSING EVENTS ( PAPER NO. 2)
Prof. Bell then lectured to audiences of two thousand or more,
in Salem, Boston and other cities. Telephone apparatus was
connected to telegraph lines and large receivers were suspended
over the audience. Mr. Watson, ten to twenty miles away, would
sing, in a loud voice, "Hold the Fort," "Pull for the Shore,"
"Yankee Doodle," and finally, in order to bring down the house,
"Do Not Trust Him Gentle Lady," which greatly amused the
audience and he could hear the applause, miles away, over the
wire.
What must have seemed a severe shock to Boston was the
fact that Prof. Bell, although a resident of that city, under-
estimated its importance when he decided that the loud, un-
harmonious music furnished by Mr. Watson which he consid-
ered good enough for them, would not do when he lectured in
New York City where he hired a powerful negro, with a sweet
voice, to sing more classic music. Mr. Watson was stationed
at New Brunswick, N. J., and the singer went there in the after-
noon for a rehearsal. Without an audience his singing was not
a success and the large transmitters into which he sang, seemed
to worry him, but he promised to do better in the evening. As
usual the phone apparatus was connected to the wire in a tele-
graph office and the operator, thinking something unusual was
about to happen, asked several of her friends to come around
that evening.
An audience of two thousand, seated several miles away, meant
absolutely nothing to the negro singer, but the seven girls in the
telegraph office pleased him immensely and so he turned and sang
to them and not a sound reached New York. Mr. Watson was
very shy when ladies were around and, much to his confusion,
Prof. Bell phoned that he would have to sing. Just as he was
about to bolt through the door he realized that the success of the
whole thing depended on him. Turning around he bellowed all
his songs into the telephone, every word of which was heard in
the lecture hall miles away. Never before had sound carried
so well.
A specification and drawing of the original Bell telephone was
filed in the United States Patent Office on February 14, 1876,
by Prof. Bell and in the summer of that year a special set of
telephones was made, nicely finished and polished for the first
PASSING EVENTS ( PAPER NO. 2) 409
time, and exhibited at the Philadelphia Centennial where Sir
William Thompson tried them and made a report giving an ac-
count of the satisfactory tests.
The above information and a good deal more, both interesting
and amusing, may be read in an article, "The Birth and Baby-
hood of the Telephone," by Mr. Thomas A. Watson, published in
The Telephone Nezvs, December 1, 1913.
The first outdoor telephone line was run from Court street,
Boston, to Somerville, Mass., in April, 1877.
There was no large organized company at first but small in-
dependent companies were formed in various cities and towns.
The Delaware and Atlantic Company covered Montgomery, Del-
aware, Chester and Bucks counties and had a wire from Lans-
dale to City Line as the Bell Telephone Company of Philadelphia
had control of that city. The line from Doylestown to Lansdale
was built in 1880 and was owned by the Delaware & Atlantic
Company. Mr. Westbrook was the superintendent and there were
seven subscribers who had phones in their houses, four of whom
were Alfred Fackenthal, Wallace Dungan, William Vaux and
the Intelligencer Company. The first exchange was placed
temporarily in Dr. Harvey's drug store, which stood on Main
street, where the Hart building now stands. John B. Livezey
was the operator. There was some rivalry between the Paschall
Brothers who hoped to have it in the Intelligencer office and
Thomas Walton who wanted it in his drug store on South Main
street. It was finally decided in favor of Mr. Walton and the ex-
change was built in the little alcove in the rear of his store.
Mrs. Sarah Walton was the operator from 1880 to 1902 during
which time the switchboard was enlarged and improved three
times. She was the first woman to talk between Doylestown and
Philadelphia over a metallic circuit. A single wire of galvanized
iron, which was a poor conductor, was used until 1890 and while
it was possible to talk direct to Philadelphia it was not always or
often satisfactory. It generally happened that Mrs. Walton came
to the rescue and finished the message. It has been said that
the first messages were relayed to Philadelphia. A. B. Hennessy,
the present superintendent in Doylestown, denies this, but he be-
lieves Lansdale and other operators may have helped out by re-
peating certain words that did not carry well on bad days.
410 PASSING EVENTS (PAPER NO. l)
\\'hen any one went to a country store to phone, the farmers,
standing around the stove would rush out and hold their horses
which became badly frightened at the fearful noise made by the
person phoning !
With few phones at first and little work it may be true that
exchange girls sometimes listened to conversations. A man,
telling a great secret to a friend said — "Wait a minute, I think the
operator is listening." The phone girl's prompt and indignant
answer was — "Its a lie, I ain't."
The galvanized iron v.-ires were replaced with copper wires by
a gradual process, from 1890 to 1900, after which time wire
thieves would cut and remove miles of copper wire in a single
night, sell it to junk dealers and then rest for months in Doyles-
town jail. Grant Christian, who furnished some of the above
information, had charge of the Bucks-Montgomery county lines
at that time.
Owing to the rapid growth of the company the exchange was
moved from Mrs. Walton's to rooms over Fretz's livery office on
State street in 1902 and Miss Mary Walton was operator with
Miss Reba W'alton as assistant.
In 1905 the Delaware & Atlantic Company took over the local
Standard Telephone Company and in 1907 the exchanges were
moved to the present building on Main street where they are at
present (1921).
In the beginning of the year 1908 the old Delaware & Atlantic
Company was absorbed by the Bell Telephone Company of
Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Telephone Company controlled
the middle district of Pennsylvania and the western part of the
state was known as The Central District Printing & Telegraph
Company. These were both taken over by the Bell Company the
same year. The old wall-boxes, with cranks that had to be
turned, to ring up central, were replaced with desk phones, and
canvasers made us take one whether we would or not. The
lines were so improved that conversation today is, in most cases
very clear and pleasant although there are some who seem to be
talking from the bottom of a well. Some who, when met face
to face, seem pleasant and agreeable, assume an afifected or
gloomy, despondent tone on the phone that suggests terrible
disasters, funerals, and ambulance excursions. Others turn.
PASSING EVENTS (PAPER NO. 2) 411
their back to the phone and walk away as far as the cord allows.
One of the latter type phoned a business house an order which,
although repeated three times, was not understood. At last the
customer becoming angry said, "Oh Hell," in a clear tone, and
was then informed if he would finish the message in the same
tone and position, the message would be understood, which he
did without any more trouble.
According to the kind information of Miss Margaret Hig-
gins of Doylestown, the local Standard Telephone Company men-
tioned above started in Doylestown in 1900. The man in charge
operated the board and taught Miss Higgins who became first
operator in 1901. There were 40 phones that year and in 1903
Miss Edith Atler was made assistant operator. William Hilde-
brand was the first "trouble man" and Elmer Garis the first night
operator. The exchange was always in Magills stone-house at
the corner of Garden alley and Broad street. When the com-
pany was sold by the sheriff in 1905 it was bought by the Dela-
ware & Atlantic Telephone & Telegraph Company and the ex-
change, which then had 140 phones, was moved to the Fretz
building. Miss Higgins was operator from the time it was built
until it was sold and was and still is the most obliging operator
Doylestown has ever known.
For the above information the writer is indebted to Mrs.
Sarah A. Walton, Mr. Frederic W. Walton, Miss Margaret M.
Higgins and especially to Mr. A. B. Hennessy, manager of the
Bell Company at Doylestown.
Bicycles. The velocipede, with two heavy wooden wheels and
iron tires, in use about 1869 on the fine asphalt streets of Boston
and Paris, was not adapted to the cobbled streets of Philadelphia,
or the rough country roads and was little used in Bucks county.
Dr. Mercer had a toy affair, in Doylestown, in 1869, and later
used a larger one in Paris in 1870. The pedals were connected
with the axle of the front wheel and one revolution of the pedal
meant one revolution of the wheel. The high wheeled bicycle
was in use at the same time. It had solid rubber tires, wire
spokes, and the pedals were connected with the axle of the front
wheel, but continual jolting over the rough country roads and
the danger of tilting forward and being thrown going down hill
412 PASSING EVENTS (PAPER NO. 2)
prevented its being used to any great extent in Bucks county.
Robert L. Cope, a lawyer of Doylestown, had one about 1867, the
Lewis brothers of Bridge Valley, occasionally rode through Cen-
treville in 1884 and Dr. Howard Randall of Mechanicsville, owned
one for several years.
It has always been a difficult matter to tell just what happens
when you walk on a sleeping dog in the dark and when a young
man on a high bicycle, tried to run over a sleeping dog, in front
of Righters Hotel at Centreville, one hot August day, the men
"resting" at the hotel could agree on only one thing, which was,
that all the sticking plaster in a nearby store was quickly used
vip — but not on the dog.
In August, 1891, a lot of boys were swimming in Stover's mill-
dam below Mechanics Valley. Christopher Holcomb, Postal
Telegraph operator at Doylestown, rode down to the dam on a
new bicycle. No one there had ever seen one like it. The low
wheels had wooden spokes, heavy wooden rims and solid rubber
tires. The pedals, attached to the frame half way between the
two wheels, and not to hub of the front wheel, as heretofore,
had a large sprocket wheel with a chain running to the sprocket
hub of the rear wheel, thus giving a chain drive. One revolution
of the pedals meant three revolutions of the wheel, or greater
speed with less effort. Mr. Holcomb's wheel was probably the
first of its kind in Doylestown. In 1892 a good many were in
use, and ladies wheels began to appear in 1893. Mrs. George
Brown owned the first one in Buckingham. In that year the
spokes were made of wire and the solid rubber tires were re-
placed with inflated ones, first on steel rims and later, very light,
bent wooden rims were made to hold the wide tires. The frames
were lighter and mud-guards and brakes were added. The Co-
lumbia bicycle, costing one hundred dollars, was the best on the
market, and Dr. Mercer uses one today (1921), that he bought in
1895. The following year, 1896, bicycle craze started, and while
there may have been several crazes before and a good many since,
none of them gripped the people like that of the bicycle. Nearly
every man, young or old, every boy, and most women, bought a
wheel. The country roads were lined with them ; bells tinkled,
lights flashed, merchants put up racks along the curb in front of
their shops to hold their customers wheels, repair shops sprang
PASSING EVENTS (PAPER NO. 2) 413
up in every town or village and along country roads. The
League of American Wheelmen was formed, with thousands of
members in every state and in Canada and a weekly journal was
published. Societies were formed in cities and villages, each hav-
ing their own colors or streamers fastened to the handle-bars,
"century" runs were made on Sundays and holidays, and tracks
were built for prize races. Men wore tight fitting knee breeches,
double boarded caps and rode without coats, but by 1897 the
handsomer knickerbochers, woolen stockings with gay colored
tops, Norfolk coats and decent looking caps were in use and were
not given up for some years after the bicycle craze died out.
Women wore very full skirts, sometimes divided ones, with
shot or lead sewed in the hem to keep them down though they
never blew as short as they are worn today.
Toll was collected at the turnpike gates and the \vheelman was
a constant worry to the gate-keeper because he made no noise
and often rushed through without paying toll. Very few tan-
dems were made at any time. The craze continued for several
years or until about 1902 when it died suddenly. A few bi-
cycles could then be seen but these were used by workmen going
to or from work, or by boys just old enough to ride for the first
time. The doctors declared every American would die of a weak
heart or tuberculosus through leaning low over the handle bars,
but neither this, nor the motorcycle, nor the automobile, but the
paralysis and sudden death of a fad killed the bicycle, although
city streets and country roads are better today than they ever
were before.
There are more bicycles in use today (1921) than there were
ten years ago. They are very much used in Holland today.
( Information of Dr. Henry C. Mercer and personal observa-
tion.)
Creameries. Before 1878 every farm had a springhouse, a
cave or a cool milk cellar for keeping milk and cream until the
latter was made up into butter, which was then sold in Pliila-
delphia or small towns, by marketmen. After the railroad was
built into Doylestown and Bethlehem in 1856, some farmers
sent their milk to Philadelphia dealers, who. after a time, became
dishonest and delayed payments so long in order to cheat the
414 PASSING EVENTS (PAPER NO. 2)
farmer, that there was a good deal of dissatisfaction and many
farmers returned to butter making. But this aiTected only a few
farms close to the railroad and so butter making continued on
almost every farm until 1878. In the summer of that year a
man from New York explained to farmers in Pineville how
cream could be separated from new milk and made into butter
the same day. A dairymens' association was immediately formed,
stock was sold and the first creamery in Bucks county built the
same year. Each farmer guaranteed to furnish a certain num-
ber of quarts of milk every day and in order to do this they
bought many more cows, thus doubling the number of quarts
guaranteed. Nearly all the farmers nearby hauled their milk to,
the creamery and it was a success from the start. The milk, after
being weighed in a can or tank, was allowed to run into a large
vat which had several pipes running through it so that ice water
passing through these pipes cooled the milk quickly and caused
the cream to rise to the top in a short time which was immediately
made up into sweet butter. Farmers had been making butter
from sour cream once a week and it was sometimes sour or
strong and little bone paddles, like salt spoons, were kept by
some market men so customers could sample or taste a pat of
butter before buying. One of these, used by Rebecca Swain,
was owned by the writer several years ago. The fresh, sweet
creamery butter was considered much better and finally crowded
out the home-made butter. The time was ripe for the change
and dairymens' associations were formed all over the county
and committees were appointed to visit Pineville creamery and
learn how the work was done. A creamery was built in Dublin
the same year (1878). One in Quakertown in 1879, Cold Spring
near Mechanicsville, in July, 1880, Pine Run a month later, fol-
lowed by Walnut Lawn at Bean Postoffice, and another at Church
Hill the same year and New Britain in 1881, so that by 1883
there were at least sixteen creameries in the county. That the
movement was popular there can be no doubt. Farmers who
had six or eight cows before could now keep eighteen or twenty.
In Battles History of Bucks County, published in 1887, every
manager of a creamery is mentioned along with doctors, lawyers
and ministers. Butter was made and shipped to New York and
Philadelphia markets and commission men hauled it to Phila-
PASSING EVENTS (PAPER NO. 2) 415
delphia and sold it from door to door, and the bone tester was no
longer used. According to Noah L. Clark of Doylestown, who
furnished the above information, cheese was also made at all the
creameries and as it took three months to make and properly
cure or dry a cheese ready for market and, as some creameries
like "\\'alnut Lawn" at Bean, made fifty to sixty a week, large
high buildings were necessary, the older ones being three stories
high with cheese-rooms on the second and third floors. The first
cheeses were made entirely of cream but proved too rich and
would not hold together but crumbled and fell. Milk with some
cream in it was then used and made a good cheese. This was
continued for several years and finally given up about 1885 al-
though Mr. Clark made a few at "Cold Spring" creamery
for nearby farmers until 1890. At the present time none are
made at any of the creameries. The round wooden cheese-boxes
were made at factories in Perkasie and Quakertown.
In 1884 revolving cream separators were put in at Pineville
creamery and used there one year before the other creameries
tried them. Farmers were paid for quantity as there was no way
of testing the quality of the milk. A good deal of it was badly
watered and some days a large vat of milk would produce but
little cream. The superintendent knew the cause but could not
correct it because he did not know who brought w^atered milk.
In 1889 Mr. Clarke bought a Babcock tester shown at a conven-
tion in the courthouse, Doylestown, and proceeded to test all the
milk. Notice was very kindly given in advance that all the milk
would be tested and the immediate result was that the quantity
brought by certain farmers was very much reduced while the
amount of butter produced was greatly increased as they were
afraid to water their milk or skim the cream for home use. This
tester was the first used and after its introduction, farmers were
paid for butter fat and not for volume of milk. 1886 the large
twenty-six inch separators were replaced by little ones that made
six thousand revolutions per minute, removing every particle of
cream so that cheese made from milk was hard and tough and
could no longer be sold.
Each creamery had a cistern into which the whey from the
cheese vats flowed. When cheese was no longer made the milk
was either worked up into cottage cheese, packed in barrels and
416 PASSING EVENTS (PAPER NO. 2)
sent to city markets or ran into the cistern where farmers pumped
it into their empty milk cans, hauled it home, and used it for
feeding pigs.
After the creameries started there was a shortage of milk in
Philadelphia and the dishonest dealers were either driven out
of business or compelled to make monthly payments. Dr. Mercer
tells a story of his father, William R. Mercer, going to Phila-
delphia to get a lawyer to collect a long over-due milk bill. The
lawyer went to see the dealer and in a short time returned and
explained to Mr. Mercer, who had waited in the office, how the
dealer had tried to kick him down the stairs whereupon Mr.
Mercer said, "Drop the suit," which the lawyer did.
Later, better prices were offered and payments were made
promptly so that farmers again shipped their milk to towni and
in a few years some creameries had a hard struggle and were
finally obliged to close. Hulmeville creamery was sold by the
sheriff April 10, 1886. while Quakertown creamery, built in
1879 at a cost of $7000.00, was sold in March, 1886, for $2700.00
to Charles Hixon, and Lewis R. Praul, failing to sell his cream-
ery building at Richboro, had it torn down in April, 1886, using
the lumber for building two dwelling houses.
On account of the rapid growth of Philadelphia and surround-
ing towns there was a greater demand for milk about 1900. The
price advanced so that it was much more profitable to ship to
town than to sell to the creameries, and only those farthest re-
moved from train or trolley, as at Dublin, Wormansville, Deep
Run, etc., continued to run to the present time (1921).
Some creameries made icecream, as at New Britain and Buck-
ingham in 1887 but this was done only in summer and not tmtil
about 1900 was it possible to buy it throughout the year. This
was made in open cans by stirring it with a stick or paddle until
it hardened or froze. No freezers, with revolving cans or dash-
ers, closed at the top were in use at that time. In August, 1886,
large cans of cream were brought to Solebury Deer-Park where
Buckingham Friends school had a picnic. Men stirred the cream
in open cans for two hours but it would not freeze and was
served in cups to the impatient children of whom the writer was
one, who got icecream about once a year at a Sunday school picnic.
About the last of May each year almost every baker opened
PASSING EVENTS (PAPER NO. 2) 417
his parlor and sold icecream by the plate until cold weather came
on and not until about 1905 was it sold in drug stores, restau-
rants, etc. Mr. Asher Lear built several small creameries near
Doylestown after 1900 but these were not for butter making but
for supplying cream to icecream makers.
The patented "Little Gem" icecream freezer for two, three or
six quarts came into use in 1893. It had a central paddle or
dasher in a closed revolving can and farmers could make their
icecream at home. The first icecream cones seen by the writer
were made by a Japanese at the St. Louis Fair, in 1904, and at
Atlantic City two years later.
When the farmer stopped making butter at home about 1880
the springhouses fell to ruin and some have entirely disappeared.
The same fate awaits or has already overtaken some of the
creameries.
Waterbacks. The early cook stoves were without waterbacks
or boxes for heating water and although a house might have a
tank, waterpipes and bath-room, hot water must be carried from
the kitchen. In 1870 William Blackfan, living on the Blackfan
farm in Solebury township, had a large copper tank or boiler
made which was placed upon the back lids of the cook stove in
the kitchen. A pipe from the house tank supplied cold water
while another pipe carried hot water to the spigots. Nothing but
a very hot fire, which was not always necessary for cooking,
would heat the water and the thing was not a success. After
sitting back of the stove for an hour one cold morning Mr.
Blackfan told his son, Edward, he believed he had worked out
a plan so that hot water could be had at all times. He immedi-
ately drove down to New Hope and had a one inch pipe bent in
the shape of the letter U with the two ends bent at right angles
to the U and parallel with one another. The U was placed in
the firebox, against the back bricks, so the hot coals lay against
it and the two ends ran back over the oven and out through holes
made in the back of the stove. One end of the new pipe entered
the copper boiler while the other connected with the pipe from
the house tank so that cold water from the latter, running into
the U was heated and stored in the copper boiler and the water
was always hot.
418 OLD HOUSEHOLD INDUSTRIES
The stove was a William Spear cook-stove and the experi-
ment was made in the winter of 1871 or about that time. Mr.
Blackfan was so pleased with the success of this, the first water-
back, that he told Mr. Spear about it and asked him to come
and inspect it which he did a few weeks later and a short time
after that Mr. Spear turned out a new cook-stove with a square,
iron, hot water back, though Mr. Blackfan got no credit or re-
muneration.
Information of Mr. Edward H. Blackfan, New Hope, Pa.,
October, 1921.
Old Household Industries.
BY MRS. FLORENCE KIRK BLACKFAN, NEW HOPE, PA.
(Friends Meeting House, Newtown, June 3, 1922.)
TO many people ancient processes sound so tiresome that
they seem prosy, but if one has a spark of sentimentality
which endears them to those who have gone before, it be-
comes a constant pleasure to recall the ways and means our
ancestors used in their daily routines. If some of us had kept a
pencil and paper near when our grandmothers were working,
or later, when their active work was done, and as they sat and
told of the things they did and the way they did them, there would
be scarcely one of us but who might have made an historical
paper most interesting and valuable.
Every-so-often we get a severe shock when the arts and crafts
workers hand out something modern by the dozen to sell, for in-
stance modern coverlids in antique designs, when we may have
one that has been cherished for generations. The shock came
to the writer a few weeks ago, when the proprietress of a gift
shop displayed a very beautiful blue and white modern-made
coverlid almost identical to one my mother had presented to her
thirty years ago. The latter coverlid was made for an older
sister of the late Moses Eastburn of Solebury township in 1810.
The thread was spun by the young woman who was soon to be-
come a bride, and probably was not the only spread she had. be-
OLD HOUSEHOLD INDUSTRIES 419
cause this particular one had never been used when it was given
to my mother. The modern one resembled it closely, but upon
examination the blue wasn't the same blue, and the white wasn't
the pure unadulterated white that had been bleached on Sole-
bury's meadows, and the texture of the weaving was less firm
and doubless less durable than the weaving on that one of one
hundred and twelve years old. Although it had never been used
or ripped in two parts to make curtains, I think I can see a tall
graceful form produce it when callers came to look over the
brides "out set".
Maybe these callers were not "callers" at all, but visitors who
drove up to the front door soon after one o'clock standard time
to spend the afternoon and stay to supper. Maybe all the bread
had been eaten at dinner time at the hostess' house. The store
was three and a half miles away and of course they couldn't have
bought bread at the store. But what of that ! A crock of foam-
ing home-made yeast was down cellar always. There was plenty
of milk there too. So what a slight bit of work it was to mix up
a large crock of buckwheat cakes, said buckwheat raised at home.
By supper time, about five o'clock (not eight or eight-thirty),
everybody sat down to a most delectable repast.
With the buckwheats some would prefer honey and butter,
some the good old-fashioned New Orleans molasses, which
where there was a large family was bought by the barrel. The
meat for the meal was not lobster cutlet or some other modern
delicacy, but it might have been venison frizzled with cream, or
home-dried beef with cream, gravy or frizzled liver. The writer
knows only a few housekeepers who continue to cure beef liver
to be used in much the same way as dried beef. This is the way
it was done. The liver from a heavy beef freshly killed was cut
into two or three pieces, placed in a vessel and covered with a
brine made of water in which had been dissolved enough com-
mon salt to float an egg. A pinch of saltpetre was added. The
liver was allowed to remain in the brine for about two weeks.
It was then taken out and each piece hung by a string to the
kitchen ceiling, until it dried so there was no danger of its mold-
ing. This process was accomplished during the winter months.
When it had dried it was wrapped securely in newspaper and
hung in the cellarwav or closet where there was little heat and
420 OLD HOUSEHOLD INDUSTl^IES
yet no danger of freezing. It was soon ready to be very thinly
sliced, frizzled in butter with cream added, and was a most
delicious and tasty dish. The frizzled liver was for generations
a favorite Firstday morning dish and was looked forward to as
a delicacy, probably because of its unusual flavor and also be-
cause there was never such an abundance of it that the family
grew tired of it.
Another tasty addition to our grandmother's meal was "Dutch
cheese". The writer knows of no reason why it was called
"Dutch cheese". To some rich cottage cheese grandmother would
add enough finely cut sage leaves, or rubbed dry ones, to give the
mass a pleasant flavor, then she made it into balls about the size
of an ordinary orange. She put this away on the cellar shelf
until it ripened or aged, which required about a week. By this
time a skin would form on the outside and when this was cut ofif
there was left a so-called Dutch cheese which was most palatable.
Very often this was served with the dessert, especially if the
dessert were a juicy rhubard, cherry or peach pie.
A dessert which was considered very fine in grandmother's
day was "bread-dumplings". This process was told me by Mrs.
Isaac Van Pelt of New Hope, whose mother (the wife of the
late John A. Beaumont of Upper Makefield township), was a
noted cook. The bread-dumplings were made in their family
more than a hundred years ago, and were very generally used by
that generation. That was before the day when boiled dough
was considered indigestible, and people thrived upon it. Prob-
ably the reason it is indigestible to some is because cooks of the
present day take too short a time to cook it. Bread dough ready
for moulding into loaves was rolled with a rolling pin, and cut
into shape with a cake cutter at the time the bread loaves were
moulded. The pieces were put on a greased dish and set away
until about an hour and a half before dinner time. Then they
were dropped into a large boiler of boiling water, slightly salted,
in which they would float and boil for at least an hour and a
half. The finished product was a dumpling, tender and most
delicious.
These were usually eaten with the sugar remaining in the
bottom of a New Orleans molasses barrel, which served as a
sauce. Some people preferred to eat them with the sauce they
OLD HOUSEHOLD INDUSTRIES 421
used on apple or peach dumplings i. e. one-half New Orleans
molasses and one-half thick sour cream blended. Very good in-
deed you will say, if you try it, even in this day. The brass
and copper kettles in which a great deal of food was cooked
long ago meant a lot of labor to keep them in good condition.
Both before and after using they usually needed cleaning. A
favorite process was to pour a quantity of vinegar into the
vessel, run to the edge of the creek if such a thing were near,
and use a piece of the moist sod found there and the sod and
vinegar combined, served as an excellent scouring soap. The
damage it did to hands and fingers were never mentioned, may-
be, never thought of. My mother's kitchen had, had yours?,
about as neat a floor covering on it as you would want, and such
as were generally used after the spotless bare floors were sup-
planted by oilcloth covered ones. Strips of rag carpet were
sewn to fit the floor, which was then stretched upon the barn
floor, usually after all the spring threshing was done, and before
the barn was needed to store hay in. The carpet was first given
a coat of cooked clear starch which was applied with a paint
brush and allowed to dry. Then it was given three of four coats
of paint. The most favored color seemed to be that with a good
deal of yellow ochre. When sufftcient paint was put on, various
decorations were put on the plain surface. My mother used two
squares of heavy cardboard, each about one foot square in both
of which had been cut out a figure the shape of a maple leaf.
With the cardboard squares placed upon the painted surface she
would paint alternate leaves of black and green. The result,
you can easily imagine. It was neat, pretty, and durable, and in
addition the old rag carpet was put to a use to last almost in-
definitely because the painting operation was replaced about
once every two years. The work of keeping it clean would dis-
may most of present-day housekeepers. It was a part of each
morning's work to wash it with clear water and once a week to
add some borax to the water — never soap. If the men came in
at noon with unusually dirty boots the operation of cleaning was
repeated in the afternoon.
Was it not making use of everything at hand that was the
keynote of thrift one hundred years ago instead of going out to
buy every single thing one needed? In the thrifty families of
422 OLD HOUSEHOLD INDUSTRIES
that day the worn bandana handkerchiefs of silk were torn into
narrow strips and plaited, to be used later as drawing strings
for bags used for various things. The writer still has some of
the plaited string.
Our grandmothers made a delicious confection, called "peach
leather". When the soft peaches were not all needed for pies
or sauce, they were sliced, and mashed into a thin layer on a
plate and put out in the sun to partially drv*. AMien the juice
had thickened and made the fruit so that it would keep it's
shape, and could be lifted off the plate it was put into a stone
crock on top of a layer of crushed sugar, and more sugar put
over it. In a day or two perhaps another layer or two would
be added, each time putting a generous layer of sugar between
each layer of peaches. This tasted pretty good, when in the
winter a layer would be brought out and passed around to be
eaten. The layer of fruit was made quite thin, and before
passing it was pulled into pieces. Of course, it was something
like the conserved fruit of today, only to my recollection it was
much better. Whether it would taste the same if we would take
the time and pains to make some like it now, I cannot say. The
richly flavored cherries of that day which now are almost ex-
tinct, were treated in somewhat the same way. except they were
not mashed. They were left whole as possible after pitting, and
when dried, sprinkled liberally with crushed sugar. They were
put away to be eaten in winter when fresh fruit was less bounti-
ful and less easily obtained than now.
A close second to the lavender or rose leaves which were
cured and put away among the table and bed linens in the chests-
of-drawers. was the dried white sweet clover blossoms. Since
there are less cows pastured by the roadsides this variety grows
in great abundance, and by cutting the long slender blooms and
drying them on the garret floor spread on papers, one may revive,
in ones own home, the delightful, delicate perfume which per-
meated every nook and corner in our grandmothers houses.
There were one hundred years ago, as now, many things done
that seem too trivial to tell, and yet they will surely be forgotten
unless some one writes about them for their preservation.
The Wire Fabric Industry in America.
BY LOUIS C. BEERS, TRENTON, N. J.
(Friends Meeting House, Newtown, June 3, 1922.)
IN this paper no attempt has been made to give a connected
history of the wire fabric industry but simply to record some
facts about the industry prior to the eighth decade of the last
century. Since that time there has been a remarkable develop-
ment in the methods of manufacture, variety and volume of
products but it is not practicable at the present time to detail
these changes. Wire fabrics include "wire cloth" which is a
term applied to a fabric of wire made with square or rectangular
meshes. Embraced in this group are insect-screen cloth, Four-
drinier cloth used in paper making, and fabrics used in separ-
ating, straining, sifting, screening, grading, reinforcing and other
purposes. A large quantity is sold under the trade name of
wire lath and is used as a foundation for plaster in place of the
common wood lath. Cloth ranges from one inch to two hundred
and fifty meshes per inch. Steel and iron, copper and its alloys
are commonly used, but the wire-cloth is made of other metals.
"Wire screening" refers to similar material made of heavy
wire, usually with large holes and is used for grading coarse
products such as coal, gravel and sand. "Wire work" is that ma-
terial made with square or diamond openings used for window
guards, railings, partitions and baskets and "wire netting" is.
that fabric made with hexagon meshes usually galvanized, such
as is- used for enclosures for birds and small animals, and also
for light fences.
To Pennsylvania belongs the distinction of the establishment
of the industry and John Sellers was undoubtedly the pioneer.
His descendants and relatives conducted a wire and wire products
factory for over a century. A statement of Horace Wells Sellers
of Philadelphia, a descendant of Nathan Sellers, regarding the ac-
tivities of various members of his family is given below :
"John Sellers (1728-1804) of Darby township, near Philadelphia, ap-
pears to have been the pioneer in this field so far as the art in
America is concerned.
424 THE WIRE FABRIC INDUSTRY IX AMERICA
In the Pennsylvania Gazette, Philadelphia, Sept. 3. 1767, No. 2019,
and subsequent issues in 1768 and 1769, you will find his business
card. In referring to the 'wire work of all sorts' and the rolling
screens, wire bolts, etc., manufactured, he states that 'he is the original
inventor and institutor of that branch of the business in America' and
in his later advertisements (Pennsylvania Gazette. July 27. 1769), he
refers to 'various kinds of wire work, such as twilled or plain', 'short
cloth for millers', screens, etc.
John Sellers, inherited from his father, Samuel Sellers. Jr.. (1690-
1773), the business of weaving woolens, etc., brought from England in
1682, by his father Samuel Sellers, Sr., (1655-1732). It appears that
even in his father's lifetime John Sellers turned his attention to work-
ing and weaving wire, and eventually abandoned the making of worsted
goods.
He was widely known as a surveyor and on his large estate de-
veloped a number of industries, flour and saw mills, tannery and grist-
mills besides the tilt mill for working metal, drawing wire, etc. He
was one of the original members of the American Philosophical So-
ciety and for many years was active in public life as a member of the
Provincial Assembly and after the Revolution, was a member of the
State Senate. His eldest son, Nathan Sellers (1751-1830), was trained
for law and conveyancing, but turned his attention to his father's in-
dustries and especially to wire working in which he was assisted by
his younger brother, Samuel Sellers (1753-1776).
Nathan Sellers seems to have given his personal attention to the
working of wire for making paper moulds, and while he was in active
service as ensign during the Revolutionary War, he w^as recalled from
military duty by resolution of congress, Aug. 26, 1776. 'to make and
prepare suitable molds, washers and utensils for carrying on the paper
manufactory.
An announcement of Nathan Sellers' improvements in working wire
will be found in a paper I contributed to James Wilcox's account of the
Ivy paper mill (See M.S. Collection, Pennsylvania Historical Society.)
In this will also be found some account of the firm of Nathan and
David Sellers who established the wire works at Sixth and Market
streets after the Revolution.
Nathan Sellers' business card will be found in the Pennsylvania Ga-
zette, August 4, 1779. and after taking his younger brother into partner-
ship, their joint advertisement appears in the Gazette, Feb. 9, 1780, and
later issues.
'In the Postscript to the Maryland Journal, No. 668, November 2,
1784, there is an advertisement of their 'Manufactory of Wire Work,
in which they refer to the screens, sieves and other appliances in-
cluding screens for windows, etc., and in this they state that they
gained their experience under their father (John Sellers, the first in-
ventor of this Branch of the Business in America).
Nathan Sellers' interest in the business eventually passed to his son
THE WIRE FABRIC INDUSTRY IX AMERICA 425
Soleman Sellers (1781-1834), who developed a high degree of inventive
ability and business enterprise, and on the dissolution of the firm of
N. & D. Sellers the most important manufacturing end of the business,
including the machine card, paper making machinery and general ma-
chinery departments passed to the firm of Soleman Sellers & Sons.
The sons of David Sellers (1757-1813), retained the wire store and
general wire weaving business that was continued until recent years
by that branch of the family. The business last known as Seller
Bros, was discontinued in 1876.
I have much relating to the early work of Nathan Sellers, some of
his account books dating from 1776 with correspondence books relating
to the business. Although his father, John Sellers, is credited with
having established the wire working industry in America, it was his
son Nathan who developed it, through his ingenuity and business en-
terprise. He was the first to devise the process of annealing wire in
closed vessels and made improvements in the methods of straightening
and drawing wire required in making wire faces for paper moulds;
these processes being adopted afterwards by manufacturers in England.
When wool or vellum faced paper moulds came into use, N. & D.
Sellers at first imported the wove wire- Noting the tendency of this
woven wire to buckle, due to unequal tension in the wires of the
warp, Nathan Sellers devised a long loom in which every wire in the
warp could be kept at equal tension. He also abandoned the imported
sleighs Avhich were found defective and after a series of experiments
improved the process and incidentally perfected a guage of his own
invention by which he obtained greater uniformity in size of the wires.
Nathan Sellers was the only maker of paper molds in the country, and
by constant improvement in processes as well as in diversity of pro-
ducts the manufactory he established and which was further extended
by his son, Coleman Sellers, held a leading place among the industries
of the country during the eighteenth and early decades of the nine-
teenth century. It was the improved equipment of the machine works
of Coleman Sellers & Sons that induced the commissioners of the Co-
lumbia Railroad to place a contract wnth this firm for several of the
first locomotives built in the early thirties, and it was on the sugges-
tion of the Sellers firm that some of the improvements were made in
the design of the American locomotive that have survived in the mod-
ern construction. The business was continued until a few years after
the death of Soleman Sellers when it was finally closed out about the
year 1842.
Many particulars relating to the work of Nathan Sellers and his suc-
cessors will be found in a series of articles entitled "Early Engineering
Reminiscences", by George Escol Sellers, in the American Machinist,
1888-1890. The author was associated with N. &. D. Sellers and a
junior member of the firm of Coleman Sellers & Sons."
Probably the second oldest factory for making wire products
was located in Baltimore and was started by one Balderston.
426 THE WIRE FABRIC INDUSTRY IN AMERICA
The late Thomas Balderston stated that the name of the founder
of the business was Hugh, who started the business in 1793, but
the first Baltimore Directory (1796) gives the name of Isaiah
Balderston as "Wire manufacturer and fan maker. Old Town,
31 Front Street". Isaiah is listed in succeeding issues until
1804 when both I. Balderston and Sons and Hugh Balderston
are given. The business was continued by a* member of the
family until 1912 when the last descendant, Thomas Balderston.
disposed of it. Mr. Balderston died July 27, 1919.
In Boston, wire products were made as early as 1810 by
Samuel Adams, whose name appears in the directory of that year
as a wire worker, also Isaac ^^^illiams is listed in the directory of
1816 as a wire worker. This business has changed ownership
several times and is now conducted under the name of IMorss
& Whyte Co., at Cambridge, Alass. Probably there were con-
temporary wire-weavers in New York but I have not been able
to get any information about the industry in that city.
The beginning of the manufacture of Fourdrinier cloth used
in the manufacture of paper was described in the Paper Trade
Journal of October 16, 1897, by Cornelius Van Houten, Treasurer
of the DeWitt Wire Cloth Company as follows :
"In the spring of 1847, William Staniar came from England and
brought to America a model for weaving Fourdrinier wires, he being
then connected with William Stephens & Son, Belleville, New Jersey,
in which firm he had an interest. From that model I made the first
American loom for weaving Fourdrinier wire, and in September, 1847,
Mr. Staniar and myself wove the first American-made wire, he being
the 'right hand' and I the 'left hand' man on the loom. That first
wire was sixty-two inches b}^ twent3^-four feet ten inches, and was
used in the mill of J. & R. Kingsland, at North Belleville (now Frank-
lin), N. J."
Pennsylvania is also the cradle of another wire product due
to the invention of Thomas Jenkins of Pottsville, Pa., who was
granted a patent on a process for making metal fabric. A copy
of the claim of the patent granted March 6, 1847, reads as follows :
"The manufacturing of screens or sieves from wire of the larger
sizes, either rolled or drawn, the wire from Avhich they are made be-
ing prepared by crinkling, as herein set forth, previously to its being
formed into meshes, by which procedure I am enabled to manufacture
screens with meshes of the larger sizes — say four inches on the side,
more or less — and in such manner as thev shall be more durable and
THE WIRE FABRIC INDUSTRY IN AMERICA 427
less costly than those made in other ways, and this new manufacture
of sieves I claim independently of the particular manner of effecting the
crinkling or of interweaving the wire so as to form the requisite meshes."
Under this patent the wires or rods were crimped in advance
of weaving. First this was done by flat plates with ridges which
pressed indentations in the wires or rods corresponding with the
desired spacing. Later the work was done by wheels with teeth
which crimped the wires for the required mesh.
At first the invention was applied to the production of heavy
screening and the wires were woven by hand. Later the same
idea was employed for making wire work with either diamond
or square meshes. In some cases the wires running in both di-
rections were crimped and for other work the wires in one direc-
tion were not crimped in advance of weaving. At a later
date, wire cloth was made on looms under the patent. The
straight long wires (warp) were wound on a beam and the filling
wires driven up by a lathe to the required spacing, giving at the
same time the crimp to the warp wires.
A relative of the inventor told me some years ago that Mr.
Jenkins was the owner of an iron works and among his customers
were the anthracite coal miners who obtained screens from him
for grading coal. These, at first were made by placing rods at
right angles to form suitable openings and then tying them to-
gether at the intersections by small wires. These screens did
not prove satisfactory as the small wires wore out and the rods
would move and form irregular openings. From this Mr.
Jenkins saw the demand for a durable fabric and hence the in-
vention of the crimped screening which has developed into one
of the greatest importance. Most of the wire work made at the
present time, and all crimped wire cloth is the result of this
invention.
A power loom was constructed about 1860 in Clinton, Mass.,
through the enterprise of E. B. Bigelow, who was engaged in
the manufacture of carpets. He adapted a loom for weaving
carpets to weaving wire. Owing to the limited demand for wire
cloth, it was required only in short lengths and it was found that
the initial cost of warping a hand loom was less, hence the power
loom did not come into general use till later.
Prior to 1870 there was comparatively little change in the
428 THE WIRE FABRIC INDUSTRY IN AMERICA
manufacture of wire cloth. Practically all of it was made on
hand looms similar in construction to looms used for weaving
fabrics of cotton, wool and other materials. There were small
manufactories located in a number of cities and towns, many of
which have gone out of existence since the establishment of
works which weave cloth on a large scale with automatic ma-
chinery at a much lower cost. The uses for wire cloth were very
limited, embracing sieves for grain cleaning, flour sieves for
household use, screens and riddles for sifting sand and gravel,
and cloth for use in flour mills.
Wire netting was first manufactured in 1865 in the United
States on power machinery by Gilbert, Bennett & Company.
Georgetown, Conn., although Joshua Horrock probably made
netting in a very limited way on a hand loom sometime prior.
The business did not develop to any great extent for a long time
owing to competition of the product made in England, however,
in 1883 a protective tarifif became effective and since then the
industry has developed to large proportions.
In the preceding lines a record is given of the genesis of the
wire fabrics industry in the United States and the name of the
men who are entitled to credit for its inception. From the
small beginnings has been developed an annual product amount-
ing to several millions of dollars which is made in many estab-
lishments located in several states from coast to coast. A wire
fabric is used in the construction of many articles, also in the
manufacture of almost everything. A wire fabric of some kind
is also required at some point from the initial process to the
finished article, besides large quantities of material are made and
sold as merchandise to consumers who find use for the same for
innumerable purposes ; therefore the industry is of great im-
portance to modern civilization.
Old Fences in Bucks County.
BY HENRY W. GROSS, DOYLESTOWN, PA.
(Friends Meeting House, Newtown, June 3, 1922.)
THE subject assigned should not necessarily include "Old
Fences in Bucks County", but fences in general wherever
used. Undoubtedly fences of some type were needed and
constructed centuries ago, the particular design depending upon
location, requirement and material at hand.
Some one says : Fences in agriculture have a two-fold purpose,
"keeping in and keeping out". Originally they were constructed
of wood or stone, depending upon which material was avail-
able, convenient or desirable.
"Stump-fences" were and are to be found in new settlements
where land is cheap, and stumps are plenty after the removal of
standing timber.
What is known as the "Swedes-fence" is adapted to steep hills
and was probably introduced into this country by pioneers from
Sweden. It never came to be a popular fence in this country
though almost any kind of waste wood can be utilized in its
construction.
In the vicinity of Penobscot county, Maine, a cedar sapling or
log fence is quite popular. Cedar thickets are very common there,
and the trees, when about one foot in diameter, are cut down
and sawed into lengths of fifteen feet or more, trimmed and they
are ready for the fence. Two stakes about one foot apart are
driven or planted into the ground. At about the length of the
panel two more stakes are located, etc., then the saplings of two
adjoining panels alternate between two stakes and when the de-
sired height is reached the stakes are permanently yoked at the
top and the enclosure is complete.
The zig-zag worm, stake and rider-fence was popular and had
its place and use here in Bucks county while timber was plenty,
labor and land cheap, but it has been relegated and become his-
torical because land is too valuable to be occupied by fencing that
necessitates occupying good farming land six to eight feet in
width wherever erected, for the entire length of the structure
430 OLD FENCES IX BUCKS COUNTY
whether one mile or many miles. It was rails for that kind of
fences that Abraham Lincoln and John Hanks split in 1830 in
the Sangamon bottom, two of which played such an important
part in the Illinois state convention. May 9 and 10, 1860, giving
"Honest Old Abe", the sobriquet of "Rail Splitter".
The material for stone fences needed probably as little prepara-
tion by man as any other fence, as the land had to be cleared of
stones for cultivation. The stone-wall fences, when properly
erected, needed less attention for repairs and were more durable
than any other kind or style of fence. A competent stone-wall
builder seldom used a hammer to shape the stones, but appeared
to have a suitable place for every stone picked up. As the good
road movement developed in Plennsylvania, and the demand for
broken and crushed stones increased, the stone-wall material, in
some sections has been carted to the State highways, and prob-
ably some of the money obtained for it has been used for
buying automobiles, which now speed over the macadamized and
concrete roads, which contain the stone-wall material from the
farms. Stone-wall fences, however, still remain throughout the
New England states, where hundreds of miles of them can be seen.
Wire fences, ornamental fences constructed of wood or iron,
or both, depending for what purpose to be used and the fancy
of the builder, have been introduced, and lately nicely trimmed
hedge fences have also become very popular.
But the type of fence to which I wish to call particular atten-
tion is the post and rail fence. A very practical, sightly and sub-
stantial fence, providing the proper care is taken in selecting and
preparing the material. In the slate section of Northampton
county, Pa., many of the posts used are constructed of slate ma-
terial properly shaped and dressed to suit. But the post and rail
fence in general use is composed entirely of wood material. In
winter, probably during the coldest days, it was customary, seven-
ty years ago for the farmer and his boys to select and cut or saw
down chestnut or white oak trees — the fallen trees were sawed
into proper lengths — six to seven feet for posts and eleven feet for
rails. In case white oak or rock oak was selected this work was
generally done in the spring of the year when the sap was flowing
and the trees could be barked. The bark was allowed to dry —
then corded in the woods and in the fall of the vear hauled to
OLD FENCES IX BUCKS COUXTV 431
some tannery. In this territory the tannery was Gilberts', Hoh-
cong, Pa., at that time the village was known by the name of
Greenville. The load of dried bark was "swapped" for leather or
sold for cash.
The leather whether sole or upper was given into the custody
of the family shoemaker. The different members of the family
had their feet measured to determine the size of the shoes needed ;
the proper record as to the size from heel to toe, the height of
the instep and the width of the foot were all in the shoemaker's
care and he was held responsible for the fit. To convert those
oak logs into post and rail sizes by means of a maul and iron or
wooden wedges, muscle and good judgment were required to
utilize the material to the best advantage.
The posts and rails being split they were carted home to the
family wood pile and there the rails were dressed at the ends
with the broadax so as to make them attractive and later usable
in erecting a post and rail fence. The pointing of the rails and
the hewing of the posts was a trick reserved for the few and not
given to the many. Hewing or squaring the upper two-thirds
of the posts with an axe and a broadax was another step or
process required in which the post in its rough state was fastened
down with an iron dog on two heavy cross pieces of wood to
give it stability and elevation while being dressed with the two
tools mentioned. The chiseling out and at a later period boring
and cutting out post-holes the proper size and regular distance
apart was probably a slow, tedious process previous to the in-
vention and patenting of the spiral or thread auger for which let-
ters patent were granted in 1809 which are recorded at Wash-
ington, D. C. Though there is indisputable evidence that post
and rail fences were constructed in this county previous to the
year 1798, eleven years before the spiral auger was patented.
What is known as the pod auger may have been in use before
spiral construction, thus partly eliminating the use of mallet and
chisel in shaping post-holes.
"Necessity", it is said, "is the mother of invention". The spiral
auger was introduced with a cross section for the handle and the
shaping of the post-holes became comparatively easy but it was
too slow. The spirit of going fast had already taken possession
of the American mind, one hundred vears before the automobile
432 OLD FENCES IX RUCKS COUNTY
or airplane pace was established. And so we find that some
genius thought out and constructed a post-boring machine and
did for the laboring man w^hat Dr. Babcock did for the dairyman,
just gave his wonderful invention to the public without asking
for any royalty whatever. The post-boring machine became a
community affair, borrowed, carted and used by every farmer in
the neighborhood. The post-holes being bored another important
step presented itself, cutting out those holes with a small axe
called a post-axe. This work had to be done "on the square" or
the rails could not be introduced and properly tightened without
twisting and having many posts standing at different angles, no
two exactly alike when fastened.
The trees cut down, the logs sawed the proper length, then
split, carted home, rails pointed, posts hewn, holes bored and
dressed, the next step was to haul the prepared material to where
the fence was to be erected. The line of fence to be built was
first marked with stakes having a piece of white fabric fastened
to them. These were sighted over and the places for the posts
located and marked ; hard work was then needed to dig holes and
later to fasten the posts rigidly.
Now whether the posts are hewed or sawed, the rails split or
sawed, if all the details are carefully followed, rigidly adhered to,
the posts lined as to height and direction, the rails properly se-
lected and mated then the post and rail fence is a credit and an
ornament for any community, a good safe indication of stability
of character, and a stranger may rest assured that there is no
need of being ashamed to be seen in that neighborhood, nor of
being a native of that community but that it is a desirable terri-
tory in which to buy a home — to enjoy life — and spend ones days.
TOMB OP COL. ARTHUR ERWIX.
>rivate burying-ground along the Delaware
River, near Erwinna, Bucks County,
Pennsylvania.
Colonel Arthur Erwin and James Fennimore Cooper's Novel,
"Wyandotte or the Hutted Knoll."
BY B. F. FACKENTHAL, JR., SC. D., RIEGELSVILLE, PA.
(Friends Meeting House, Solebury, October 14, 1922.)
>»i>Wf^^ HE special thought in preparing this paper on
Colonel Arthur Erwin, was to preserve a tradi-
tion which leads to the belief that certain inci-
dents in his life and death led James Fennimore
Cooper to use them as the foundation for his
novel IVyandotte or the Hutted Knoll, published
in 1843. But my study of his life, and of his family, has led me
to add some of the leading features of their history.
Arthur Erwin was a Scotch-Irishman, born in the north of Ire-
land in 1726. During the early part of May 1768, he embarked
for America, sailing in the ship "Newry Assistance," from the
port of Newry on Carlington Bay, on the Irish coast, with his
wife and five small children ; John, the oldest was twelve, and
Hugh, the youngest, but one year old. His wife died at sea July
10, 1768, and after a voyage lasting over three months, Mr. Er-
win with his five children landed in Philadelphia August 18, 1768.
They went direct to Dyerstown in Bucks County, where Arthur's
brother, William, had in 1755, purchased two hundred and twen-
ty-six acres of land, and where he and his wife, Margaret, nee
Earle, made their home.^
Arthur Erwin seems to have been a man of some means, and
no doubt guided by the advice and counsel of his brother, bought,
March 16. 1769, two tracts of land in Tinicum Township, Bucks
County, aggregating five hundred and twenty-eight acres and one
hundred and fifty seven perches. These were part of the lands
of the Pennsylvania Land Company of London, but Gen. Davis,
in his History of Bucks County, Vol. II, p. 5. has fallen into an
error in saying that Arthur Erwin purchased 1,563 acres 32
perches direct from the London Company, overlooking the fact
1 "William Erwin. brother of Arthur, came to America from Ireland about
1750. He was probably accompanied by four other brothers. John, Hugh,
Nathaniel and Alexander. Hugh died intestate in Springfield township in
1753, and letters of administration were granted to his widow, Elizabeth, on
May 14, 1753.
434 COLONEL ARTHUR ERWIN
that the lands remaining unsold in that company, were disbursed
in 1761, seven years before the arrival of Arthur. On May 1,
1769, Arthur Erwin moved on his Tinicum plantation, and there
he reared his fainily and lived over the remainder of his life. The
town of Erwinna, named for him, is located on that tract. The
records at Doylestown show that Colonel Erwin owned at dif-
ferent times, and practically all at one time, 2.402 acres 19
perches of land in Bucks County, of which 1,859 acres 101 perches
were in Tinicum, and the remainder in Plumstead, Nockamixon,
Springfield and Durham Townships. His large holdings of land
in Lurenze County, Pa., and Steuben County, N. Y., will be re-
ferred to later in this paper. On the death of Colonel Erwin in
1791 (he died intestate), the homestead was adjudged to his then
oldest living son, Joseph, who did not marry. Joseph lived thereon
until his death in 1807. In his will he devised this homestead
tract to his brother William, who made his home there down to
the time of his death in 1836, and as General Davis records, not
one acre of these ancestral lands in Bucks County is now owned
by a member of the Erwin family. -
Colonel Arthur Erwin married a second time, viz, on July 27,
1771, to Mary Kennedy, daughter of William Kennedy of Spring-
field Township.^ By this union there were six children, four sons
and two daughters, all living to maturity. One of the daughters,
Sarah (1773-1854). married Dr. John Cooper, the other, Re-
becca (1775-1848). married Dr. William McKean, both of
Easton, Pa. It appears from the records at Doylestown, that
there was some lack of harmony between Colonel Erwin and his
second wife. She brought suit against him in the quarter ses-
sions at Newtown (then the county-seat), for support, declaring
that she had been ejected from her home and otherwise badly
treated. Later she made her home at Easton, where she passed
away July 29. 1817. Her body and that of her son. Dr. John
Erwin. the second son of that name (who did not marry), lie
buried in the Easton cemetery.
Colonel Arthur Erwin and two of his sons, John and William,
had splendid military records during the Revolutionary War.
Arthur was elected captain of a company of Bucks County Asso-
2 History of Bucks County, by Gen. W. W. H. Davis. Vol. II, pp .5 & 6.
3 Pennsylvania Archives. Second Series, Vol. II, p. 82.
COLONEL ARTHUR ERWIN 435
ciators, re