Bucks County PA Archives Biographies.....Swartzlander, Joseph
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joe Patterson, Patricia Bastik & Susan Walters Dec 2009

Source: History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania; edited by 
J.H. Battle; A. Warner & Co.; 1887
Lower Makefield Township


   JOSEPH SWARTZLANDER P.O. Yardley, was born at 
Swartzlander's mill property (now Sterner's), in Southampton 
township, January 1, 1812.  The first history of the family 
in America begins with Philip, who came from Steinhardt in 
Swartzwald, Germany.  He started with his wife and two 
children in 1752, and was five months on the voyage.  Owing 
to the failure of water and supplies sickness occurred, and 
his wife and all the children on the ship died at sea except 
Barbara, aged seven, and Gabriel, aged five; the latter the 
grandfather of the subject of this sketch.  Philip and his 
children settled in New Britain township, this county, near 
the Baptist church, and the former married Margaret Angel, 
by whom he had, as far as known, two children, Conrad and 
Philip, Jr.  The second wife's children afterward went to 
North Carolina, and one to Rock Island county, Ill., and 
married an Adams.  Philip, Sen., was buried at New Britain 
Baptist church in 1784. Gabriel, son of Philip, was born 
March 31, 1747, came to this country in 1752 and died July 
17, 1814.  He married Salome Freed, nee Stout.  They owned 
four hundred acres, now divided into farms and owned by Eli 
Nice, Oliver Jacoby, Samuel Carwithan, A. James Layman, 
Abraham Overholt, Nathaniel Kratz, Isaac Kratz, Jacob Bergey 
and Jonas Bergey. The old homestead is now owned by Jacob 
Bergey.  The children of Gabriel Swartzlander were:  John, 
Magdaline, Jacob, Margaret, Catherine, Abraham (died young), 
Joseph, Philip (died young) and David.  Among these children 
Gabriel divided his property as follows: To Joseph he gave 
Jacoby's mill, also Nice's and Bergey's farms; to David the 
homestead, Overholt, Layman and Hubbard farms; to John the 
farm now occupied by Samuel Carnithan; he gave money equal 
in amount to Jacob who went to Southampton, and to his 
daughters equal amounts with their brothers.  John's 
children were Debora Delp and Anna Godshalk. Magdaline's 
(Kratz) children were:  Catherine and Salome; Joseph's 
children were: Catherine, Abel, Elizabeth, Salome, Mary and 
Emily.  David's children were:  George, Susan, Jacob, John.  
 Jacob, father of Joseph, our subject, married first 
Elizabeth Cope, by whom he had the following children:  
Abraham, Gabriel, Joseph and Salome.  His children by his 
second wife, who was Elizabeth Moot, and is still living at 
Bustleton, aged 97 years, were:  Emily, Clara, Wilhelmina 
and Harriet.  David Swartzlander gave the corner-stone to 
the Tohickon Lutheran church in Bedminster.  The old 
Swartzlanders were mostly German Baptists and some were 
Mennonites. The early life of Joseph Swartzlander was spent 
in the township of Southampton.  He received his education 
at the local schools and finished at Burlington, N. J., at 
the academy kept by Samuel Aaron in the year 1832.  Among 
his classmates were Professor Pepper, Sen., of the 
University of Pennsylvania, and the late Ellerslie Wallace, 
professor of obstetrics in the Jefferson Medical college, at 
Philadelphia.  When 22 years of age, adopting the mode of 
travel afterward adopted by Bayard Taylor, he went to 
Zanesville, Ohio.  While there he was stricken with 
smallpox, but recovered sufficiently to continue his journey 
and went to New Orleans, going down the Ohio and Mississippi 
rivers on a flat-boat.  After a short stay he returned by 
steamer to St. Louis, and with a companion walked to 
Detroit, Mich., a distance of five hundred and sixty-four 
miles, crossing where Chicago now stands, it being then a 
swamp.  From Detroit he went to Buffalo, thence by the Erie 
canal to Rochester, thence to Albany, to Boston, and thence 
to the place of starting.  In 1837 he was married to Abigail 
W. Rankin, of Huntington Valley, Montgomery county, Pa.  His 
children are:  Mary, wife of Daniel L. Beans, of Lower 
Makefield; Frank, a physician at Doylestown; Albert, an 
attorney in Omaha, Neb.; Laura (an elocutionist), Harry and 
Ella at Yardley; and Fred, a physician at Richborough.  Two 
children died young; Jacob, twin brother of Laura, drowned 
at Yardley, and Abraham, who died of typhoid fever at 
Yardley.  In political preferment Mr. Swartzlander is a 
republican.  His life as a business man has been one of 
unremitting activity.  He has cut and marketed the greater 
part of the timber of the lower part of Bucks county.  Much 
of this timber has found its way to Trenton, Philadelphia, 
New York and even to California, to be used in carriages and 
wagons.  His habits are simple.  He never used spirits or 
tobacco.  He is a man of genial disposition, and his memory 
of people and events is phenomenal.  He is very active, and 
at the age of 75 years considers it no hardship to ride on 
horseback fifty miles a day.  For the past forty years he 
has handled from one to two thousand feet of hard lumber per 
day, besides attending to many other kinds of business.  He 
is up and about every morning in summer at four o'clock, 
while most people are still wrapped in slumber.  He recently 
visited his mother, who is living at Somerton, Philadelphia, 
at the age of 97 years.