THE HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, CHAPTER III, WILLIAM PENN BECOMES PROPRIETOR, 1673 TO 1682 from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time by W. W. H. Davis, A.M., Democrat Book and Job Office Print., Doylestown, PA, 1876. Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Donna Bluemink. dbluemink@cox.net Transcriber's note: Liberty has been taken with numbering footnotes so as to include all footnotes from both the 1876 and 1905 editions, plus any additional text and pictures in the 1905 edition. All 1905 material will be noted with an asterisk. USGENWEB NOTICE: Printing this file by non-commercial individuals and libraries is encouraged, as long as all notices and submitter information is included. Any other use, including copying files to other sites requires permission from the submitters PRIOR to uploading to any other sites. We encourage links to the state and county table of contents. ___________________________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER III WILLIAM PENN BECOMES PROPRIETOR OF THE COUNTRY WEST OF THE DELAWARE 1673 TO 1682 William Penn first appears. Sketch of life and character. Grant of Pennsylvania. Why so named. Penn writes a letter to inhabitants. Markham deputy governor. Transfer to government. Site of Pennsbury chosen. Commissioners to purchase land. Silas Crispin and Thomas Holme. Site for Philadelphia selected. Immigrants to 1682. Henry Paxson, John Brock, William Yardley, etc. Races that settled Bucks county. English, Germans, Scotch-Irish, Welsh, Hollanders. Indian occupants. Lenni Lenape. Their treatment of children. Tamany. [Picture of William Penn at age 22, appears here.] William Penn first appears in connection with affairs in America in 1673 (1). West New Jersey was then held by Lord Berkley and Sir George Carteret, but in March of that year Berkley conveyed his interest to John Fenwick in trust for Edward Byllinge; but some difficulty occurring between them, William Penn was chosen arbitrator. In 1674 he was appointed one of the three trustees, into whose hands the entire management and control of the West New Jersey passed. Through this agency he became the chief instrument in the settlement of that country, which afforded him an excellent opportunity to collect valuable information of the country generally. No doubt he directed his attention especially to the west bank of the Delaware, and, we have every reason to believe that the favorable accounts he received of it, induced him to take the necessary steps to plant a colony of Friends here. (1) When the territory west of the Delaware came into Penn's possession, 1681, the Swedes, Finns and Dutch settled along the river were estimated at 3,000, few in Bucks county, and fewer English. * The founder of Pennsylvania was the son of Sir William Penn, an admiral in the English navy, and was born in London October 14, 1614. His mother was Margaret, daughter of John Jasper, a merchant of Rotterdam. He was educated at Oxford, a classmate of John Lock, and was noted for his talents and diligence in study. While a student he attended a meeting of Friends and listened to a sermon preached by Thomas Loe, which made a deep impression on his mind. On his return home his father tried to persuade him to give up his religious convictions, which he refused to do, and was driven from the house, with blows; but his father relented, through the intercession of the mother, and he was restored to favor. He was now sent abroad with persons of rank, in the hope that gay scenes and worldly company would drive religious thoughts from his mind. He spent two years in France, where he applied himself to the study of the language and to theology, and acquired all the polish of that polite nation. On his return to England, in 1664, he was entered a student of law at Lincoln's Inn. His religious convictions returning to him, his father sent him to Ireland, where he spent some time at the gay court of the Duke of Ormond, and in managing his father's estates there. While thus occupied he had an opportunity of again listening to the preaching of Thomas Loe, which interested him so deeply that he became a constant attendant at Friends' meeting. In the autumn of 1667 he was arrested, with others, at a meeting at Cork, but was released. He now became closely identified with the Friends, which reaching the ears of his Father, he was ordered home to England. Every persuasion and entreaty were now used to induce him to give up his connection with the despised "Quakers," but in vain. Finally, his father begged him, to at least take off his hat in the presence of the king, the Duke of York, and himself - but he declined to accede to the request as it involved a principle. He was again driven from home, but his mother, the ever faithful friend, remained true to him, and often relieved him in great need. Penn now became an open and avowed advocate of the religious doctrine of the Friends, and the following year began to preach. He did not immediately adopt their plain costume and speech, but for some time continued to wear his sword and courtly dress. In time these were cast aside, and William Penn identified himself, in all things, with the despised sect with which he had cast his lot, and endured with them all the pains and penalties the bigotry of the times inflicted. He was only reconciled with his father at the latter's death-bed, when he told William that he had "chosen the better part." William Penn was married in 1672, at the age of twenty-eight, to Gulielma Maria, daughter of Sir William Springett, who lost his life in the civil wars, a woman beautiful in person, and of great merit and sweetness of disposition. He now gave himself wholly to the work of the ministry, making several religious journeys to different parts of Great Britain and the continent. At his father's death he was left with an income of not less than 1,500 pounds a year. The appearance and personal character of William Penn are illy understood by the world. The outlandish painting of Benjamin West of the apocraphal elm-tree treaty represents him an old, broad-faced, very fat and clumsy-looking man, as if he had been born, and brought up, in an ancestral broad-brim and shad-belly. This picture is brought to the attention of Pennsylvania children in their early youth, and never leaves them. William Penn was an entirely different sort of person. He was an accomplished and elegant gentleman; polite and refined, and conversant with the usages of the most polished society of that time. He was reared amid luxury; surrounded with all the appliances of wealth; and educated to all the refinement of that polished age. He wore the sword like a true cavalier; and his portrait, at the age of twenty-three, shows him to have been a very handsome young man. He is said to have excelled in athletic exercises. When he came to Pennsylvania he was only thirty-eight, hardly in his prime; and instead of being the dumpy figure West paints him, he was tall and elegant in person, with a handsome face and polished manners. Neither was he an austere ascetic, but indulged in the innocent pleasures of life, and relished all the good things that God place at his hand. He was, in the truest sense, a christian gentleman and enlightened law-giver, far in advance of his day and generation. At the death of Admiral Penn the British government was found indebted to him, for services rendered and on account of money loaned, about 16,000 pounds. In lieu of the money William Penn proposed to receive land in America north of Maryland and west of the Delaware. He presented a petition to Charles II, in June 1680, which was laid before the privy council. A long and searching course of proceedings was had on the petition, and after many vexatious delays his prayer was granted, and a charter to Penn signed and issued. The letters patent are dated March 4, 1681. The charter specifies that the grant should be bounded by the Delaware river on the east, from a point twelve miles north of New Castle to the forty-third parallel of latitude, and to extend five degrees westward from the river, embracing: - "All that tract or part of land in America, with all the islands therein contained, as the same is bound on the east by Delaware river from twelve miles distant northward of New Castle town unto the three and fortieth degree of northern latitude, if the said river doth extend so far northward, then by the said river so far as it doth extend, and from the head of the said river the eastern bounds are to be determined by a meridian line to be drawn from the head of the said river unto the three and fortieth degree, the said lands to extend westward five degrees in longitude from the said eastern bounds, and the said lands to be bound on the north by the beginning of the three and fortieth degree of northern latitude." Penn and his heirs were constituted the true and absolute Proprietary of the country; and he was empowered to establish laws, appoint officers, and to do other acts and things necessary to govern the country, including the right to erect manors. When it became necessary to give a name to the county covered by the grant, Penn chose New Wales, but the king objected. Penn then suggested "Sylvania," to which the king prefixed the word "Penn," in honor of his father, and thus the country was given the name it bears - Pennsylvania, which means the high or head wood-lands. The king's declaration, announcing the grant and letters patent, was dated April 2d, 1681, and the deed of the Duke of York to William Penn was executed the 31stof August (2). (2) William Penn, under date of 5th of 1st mo., 1681, wrote as follows to his friend, Robert Turner, concerning the name of the new province (see Hazzard's Annals, 500): "This day my country was confirmed to me under the great seal of England, with large powers and privileges, by the name of Pennsylvania, a name the king would give it in honor of my father. I chose New Wales, being as this, a pretty hilly country, but Penn being Welsh for a head, as Pennanmoire in Wales, and Penrith in Cumberland, and Penn in Buckinghamshire, the highest land in England, called this Pennsylvania, which is the high or head woodland; for I proposed, when the secretary, a Welshman, refused to have it called New Wales, Sylvania, and they added Penn to it; and though I was much opposed to it, and went to the king to have it struck out and altered, he said it was past and would take it upon him; nor could twenty guineas move the under secretary to vary the name; for I feared lest it should be looked on as a vanity in me, and not as a respect in the king, as it truly was, to my father, whom he often mentions with praise. * The first act of William Penn was to write a letter to the inhabitants of Pennsylvania, dated the 8th of April; and on the 10th he appointed his cousin William Markham deputy governor and commander-in-chief of the province, who he clothed with full powers to put the machinery of the new government into motion. At what time Markham sailed for America is not known, but we find him in New York, with the king's letter, in June, which with his commission, he laid before the council and commander in the absence of Governor Andros. On the 21st the authorities at New York addressed a letter to the justices and other magistrates on the Delaware notifying them of the change of government. In a few days Colonel Markham repaired thither to enter upon his duties, bearing with him Penn's letter to the inhabitants, which assured them that they should be governed by laws of their own making, and would receive the most ample protection to person and property. Markham was authorized to call a council of nine, which met and organized the 3d of August, from which time we may date the establishment of a civil government for Pennsylvania. There was very little interference in the established order of things, and the people found a mild ruler in the deputy governor. The seat of government was fixed at Upland, the present Chester. The old court closed its session the 13th of September, and the new court opened the next day. Among the business transacted was the appointment of William Biles and Robert Lucas, who lived at the falls, justices of the peace, and pounds, shillings and pence were declared to be the currency of the country. But it was difficult to get rid of the guilders after they had been so long in circulation. On the 20th of November the deputy governor sat upon the bench and administered justice for the first time. It does not appear that any immigrants accompanied him to Pennsylvania. Markham was instructed by William Penn to select a site, and build for him a dwelling, and it was probably he who chose the spot whereon Pennsbury house was erected, in Falls townships. We can imagine him prospecting along the west bank of the Delaware for a suitable location for the home of the Proprietary that afterward became historical. We have no doubt that he came overland from New York, and possibly, as he traveled along the western bank of the Delaware, or sailed down its broad bosom from the falls, he was struck with the extensive and fertile tract still known as "the manor," then covered with a growth of giant timber, and returned thither to fix the site of Pennsbury house. To hasten the work on his arrival, he brought the frame with him and mechanics to put it together. September 30, 1681, William Penn appointed William Crispin, John Berzar (Bergar*) and Christopher Allen, commissioners, to go to Pennsylvania with power to purchase land of the Indians, and to select a site for, and lay out, a great city. About the same time he appointed James Harrison his "lawful agent," to sell for him any parcel of land in Pennsylvania of not less than two hundred and fifty acres. Penn, in a letter of September 4, 1681, gives the conditions upon which land is to be sold, and the quantit y, to each purchaser. Settlers were to receive fifty acres for each servant they took out, and fifty for each child. Those too poor to buy could take up land at a rent of one pence an acre, two hundred acres to each head of a family, and fifty acres to each servant at the same rent. The rent of poor servants was afterward reduced to one and a half pence per acre. Penn agreed to buy the passage of those too poor to pay their own, but they must pay double rent. He pledged himself that this rent should never be raised, (and it was not*). (3) [Silas Crispin was appointed surveyor-general, and sailed with the commissioners but, dying on the voyage, Captain Thomas Holme was appointed and commissioned his successor the 18th of April, 1682. He was a native of Waterford, Ireland, and is said to have served in the fleet under Admiral Penn in the West Indies when a young man. He sailed from the Downs April 23d, accompanied by two sons and two daughter, Silas Crispin, the son of his predecessor in office, and John, the eldest son of James Claypole. Thomas Holme made his home in Philadelphia, and owned land in Bristol township, but it is not known that he ever lived there. His two sons died in his lifetime. His daughter, Esther, married Silas Crispin who came to America with him, and their daughter, Eleanor, was the ancestress of the Harts, of Warminster, in the female line. The mother of Silas Crispin, the elder, was a sister of Margaret Jasper, the mother of William Penn, which made him the first cousin of the founder.] *(3) Text in brackets replaced in 1905 edition with the following: It is current history that Penn appointed his cousin, William Crispin the first Surveyor-General of the Colony, but no proof of this has been found, his only known commission being for "Commissioner." It is said the vessel he sailed in, was blown off the Cape of Delaware and carried to the West Indies where he died. However this may be, Captain Thomas Holme was appointed his successor April 18, 1682. He was a native of Waterford, Ireland, and when a young man, had served in Admiral Penn's fleet in the West Indies. He was accompanied to Pennsylvania, by his two sons and two daughters, Silas Crispin, son of his predecessor and John, eldest son of James Claypole. There is a dispute as to the time Captain Holme sailed. He resided in Philadelphia but owned land in Bristol township, though it is not known he ever lived there. His two sons died in his life time. His daughter Esther married Silas Crispin, who came with him to America, and their daughter, Eleanor, became the ancestress of the Harts, of Warminster, the Davises of Southampton, Blackfans, Houghs, and other county families in the female line. (4) Capt. William Crispin married first, 1650, Annie Jasper, daughter of John Jasper, a merchant of Rotterdam, Holland, and a sister of Margaret Jasper, the wife of Admiral Penn, and mother of William Penn. Some authorities state that John Jasper was a native of Rotterdam, and others that he was an Englishman by birth. Had Captain Crispin lived Penn intended appointing him Chief Justice. * Among the earliest acts of Markham and the commissioners was the selection of a site for a great city, which resulted in the founding of Philadelphia. They were instructed by Penn to make careful soundings along the west side of the Delaware, of the river and creeks, to ascertain "where most ships may best ride, of deepest draft of water." It is not known how far up the Delaware was examined, but there is a tradition that Pennsbury was at one time selected as the site for the capital city, but it was finally fixed where it stands, between the Delaware and Schuylkill. We are told that within a few months Philadelphia contained eighty houses and cottages, and more than three hundred farms were laid out and partly cleared. In the summer of 1684 the city contained three hundred and fifty-seven houses, many of them large and well-built, with cellars. In 1685 the houses had increased to six hundred. Within little more than two years from its settlement ninety ships had arrived, bringing seven thousand two hundred passengers. Oldmixon says that in 1684 Philadelphia contained two thousand five hundred inhabitants (5). (5) The following, on the subject of the location of Philadelphia, is from Watson's Annals: "Samuel Preston says of his grandmother, that she said Phineas Pemberton surveyed and laid out a town intended to have been Philadelphia up at Pennsbury, and that the people who went there were dissatisfied with the change. On my expressing doubts of this, thinking she might have confused the case of Chester removal, Mr. Preston then further declared, that having nearly forty years ago (about 1786) occasion to hunt through the trunks of surveys of John Lukens, surveyor-general of Pennsylvania, he and Lukens then saw a ground plat for the city of Philadelphia, signed Phineas Pemberton, surveyor-general, that fully appeared to have been in Pennsbury manor; also another for the present town of Bristol, called Buckingham." The theory of Samuel Preston is easily overturned by the two facts, that Pemberton did not reach Pennsylvania until after Philadelphia was laid out, and that he was never "surveyor-general." Before Penn left England a great many persons had purchased land in Pennsylvania, to whom deeds were given, the surveys to be made after their arrival. Markham and the commissioners issued a number of warrants for the survey of land, which may be found by consulting the records. The oldest deeds on record in Bucks county are those of Penn to Thomas Woolrich, of Shalford, county of Stafford, for one thousand acres, dated April 1, 1681; and from Penn to James Hill, of Beckington, county of Somerset, shoemaker, dated July 27, 1681, for five hundred acres. In each case it is mentioned that the quit-rent is one shilling per one hundred acres. It is not known that either of these purchasers settled in this county (6). (6) The deed of John Hart, ancestor of the author, in the female line, is a case in point. Penn executed a deed to him for a thousand acres at Worminghurst, England, in 1681, and after his arrival, 1682, he located five hundred in Byberry, and the same in Warminster township, Bucks county. The author has the deed. * Several immigrants arrived in 1682, previous to William Penn, and settled in Bucks county. Among these were Richard Amor, of Buckelbury, Berkshire; Henry Paxson, of Bycot house, parish of Slow, in the county of Oxford. He embarked with his family, but his wife, son, and brother Thomas died at sea, and his daughter Elizabeth only survived to reach her father's new home on the Delaware. He settled in Middletown, and married Margaret Plumley August 13, 1684; Luke Brinsley, of Leek, in the county of Stafford, mason, arrived September 28th, and settled in Falls. He was probably a servant of William Penn, for he was in his employ as "ranger;" John Clows, Jr., of Gosworth, in the county of Chester, with his brother Joseph, sister Sarah, who married John Bainbridge, in 1685, and servant Henry Lingart, and settled in Lower Makefield. Clows died in 1683, and Lingart soon after his arrival. Another immigrant named Clows, arrived about this time bringing three children, Margery, Rebecca and William, and servants Joseph Chorley, Daniel Hough and John Richardson. Clows married Mary Ackerman August 2, 1686; John Brock, or Brockman, of Stockport, in the county of Chester, with two servants, one named Eliza Eaton, and followed by a third in another vessel, and settled in Lower Makefield. He was possibly the ancestor of the Brocks of Doylestown. One authority says he came from Bramall in Chester. He had two grants of land, one for one thousand acres, dated March 1681, and another March 3, 1681, the acres not mentioned; William Venables, of Chathill, county of Stafford, came with his wife Elizabeth, and children Joyce and Francis, settled in Falls, and died in December 1683; George Pownall and Eleanor, his wife, of Laycock, in the county of Chester, farmer, with five children and three servants John Breasly, Robert Saylor and Martha Worral. Pownall was killed by the fall of a tree, the first accidental death known in the county, one month and two days after his arrival, and a son George was born twelve days afterward. [William Yardley and Jane, his wife, of Bansclough, near Leek, in Staffordshire, yeoman, with children Enoch, Thomas and William, and servant Andrew Heath, arrived at the falls September 28, 1682, and settled in Lower Makefield, taking up a large tract covering the site of Yardleyville. He was born in 1632, was a minister among Friends in his twenty-fifth year, and was several times imprisoned. He was a member from Bucks of the first assembly, and also in the council, dying in 1693. Thomas Janney wrote of him about the time of his death: "He was a man of sound mind and good understanding." He was an uncle of Phineas Pemberton (7). From him have descended all the Yardleys of this county, and many elsewhere, with unnumbered descendants in the female line (8).] These and other immigrants came in the ships Samuel, and Friends' Adventure. The servants who accompanied them were indentured to serve four years, and at the end of the time each one was to receive his freedom and fifty acres of land - the condition of all indentured servants brought from England at that period. (7) Dr. Buckman is of the opinion that William Yardley's house was on the Dolington road a mile from Hardleyville. (8) Text in brackets not included in 1905 edition. The settlement of new countries is governed by a law as well-defined as that of commerce or finance. From the time the human family first went abroad to found colonies down to the present day, civilization has traveled up the valleys of rivers and their tributaries, while the wealth, developed by labor and capital, has as invariably flowed down these same valleys to the sea. This law was observed by our ancestors. Planting themselves upon the Delaware, they gradually extended up its valley and the valleys of the Poquessing, Pennypack and Neshaminy, and penetrated the interior. At the end of the second year after Penn's arrival we find settlers scattered here and there through the wilderness as high up as Wrightstown, Warrington and Upper Makefield. Bucks county was settled by three distinctly-marked races, whose peculiarities are seen in their descendants - the English, the German, and the Scotch-Irish. A fourth race, the Welsh, followed the other three, and settled some portions of the middle and upper sections of the county, but their descendants are not so distinctly marked. They were generally Baptists, and, while they did not introduce that worship into the county, they added largely to its communion and strength. This mixture of peoples gives our population a very composite character. The first to arrive were the English, mostly Friends, who immediately preceded, came with, or followed William Penn, and settled in the lower parts of Chester, Philadelphia and Bucks. They were the fathers and founders of the commonwealth, and have left their lasting impress upon our society and laws. They were followed by the Germans, who transferred the language and customs of the Rhine to the Schuylkill, the upper Delaware and the Lehigh. They were of several denomination, the Lutherans, Reformed and Mennonites predominating. The Germans came close upon the heels of the English Friends, who had hardly seated themselves on the banks of the Delaware when the language of Luther was heard on the Schuylkill. As early as 1682 and 1683 a few settled where Germantown stands, and to which they gave the name. They were followed by a number of German Friends, from Gersheim (9), near Worms, in 1686, having been convinced by William Ames. They came in considerable numbers soon after 1700. In the fall of 1705 two Germans agents came to view the land, and went pretty generally through the country, but returned without buying. In the winter of 1704-5 Penn writes to James Logan that he has an hundred German families preparing to go to Pennsylvania, which will buy thirty or forty thousand acres of land. In the summer of 1709 Penn announces to Logan the coming of the Palatines (Germans), and charges him to use them "with tenderness and care;" says they are "a sober people, divers Mennonites, and will neither swear nor fight" - a great recommendation with the founder. Tender and considerate William Penn! - he wants these strangers treated with tenderness and care when they come to their new homes in the wilderness! Between 1708 and 1720 thousands of Germans arrived from the Palatinate. About 1711 several thousand, who had immigrated to New York, left that province and came to Pennsylvania because they were badly treated. After this no Germans would settle there. In 1717 James Logan deprecates the great number of Germans that are coming, which he says "gives the country some uneasiness." He writes, in 1714, that Sir William Keith, the governor, while at Albany, two years before, invited the New York Germans to come to Pennsylvania to increase his political influence; fears they may be willing to usurp the country to themselves; and four years later he is glad the influx of strangers will attract the attention of Parliament. There may have been genuine fear on the part of the authorities, which complained that the Germans were bold and indigent, and seized upon the best vacant tracts of land without paying for it. To discourage their coming thither, the provincial assembly laid a tax of 20s. a head on each newly arrived servant. The government had become so jealous of the Germans and other immigrants, not English, by this time, that all attempts at naturalization failed until 1724, under the administration of Governor Keith. (9) The name "Gresheim" is spelled in two or three ways (one being "Cresheim" *) The third race to arrive was the Scotch-Irish, as they are generally called, but properly Scotch, and not the offspring of the marriage of Gaelic and Celt. They were almost exclusively Presbyterians, the immigration of the Catholic-Irish setting in at a later period. The Scotch-Irish began to arrive about 1716-18. Timid James Logan had the same fear of these immigrants that he had of the Germans. They came in such numbers about 1729, that he said it looked as if "Ireland is to send all her inhabitants to this province," and feared they would make themselves masters of it. He charged them of possessing themselves of the Conestoga manor "in an audacious and disorderly manner," in 1730. The 20s. head-tax laid the year before had no effect to restrain them, and the stream flowed on, in spite of unfriendly legislation. No wonder - it was an exodus from a land of oppression to one of civil and religious liberty! The Scotch-Irish have a history full of interest. In the sixteenth century the province of Ulster, in Ireland, which had nearly been depopulated during the Irish rebellion in the reign of Elizabeth, was peopled by immigrants from Scotland. The offer of land, and other inducements, soon drew a large population, distinguished for thrift and industry, across the narrow strait that separated the two countries. They were Presbyterians, and built their first church in the county of Antrim, in 1613. The population was largely increased the next fifty years under the persecutions of Charles II and James II in their effort to establish the church of England over Scotland. There has been but little intermarriage between the Irish and these Scotch-Saxons, and the race is nearly as distinct as the day it settled in Ireland. In the course of time persecution followed these Scotch-Irish into the land of their exile, and after bearing it as long as it became men of spirit to bear, they resolved to seek new homes in America, where they hoped to find a free and open field for their industry and skill, and where there would be no interference with their religious belief. Their immigration commenced the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Six thousand arrived in 1729; and it is stated that for several years, prior to the middle of the century, twelve thousand came annually. A thousand families sailed from Belfast in 1736, and it is estimated that twenty-five thousand arrived between 1771 and 1773. Nearly the whole of them were Presbyterians, and they settled in Pennsylvania. Many of them came into Bucks county in quest of homes, and in a few years we find them scattered over several sections, from the Neshaminy to the mountains north of the Lehigh. They were the founders of all the old Presbyterian churches in the county. We had no class of immigrants that excelled them in energy, enterprise and intelligence. A considerable number of Hollanders settled in the lower section of the county in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, principally on the Neshaminy and its branches, but their descendants have quite lost their characteristics of race, in the hotch- potch of many peoples. These several races came to the wilds of Pennsylvania for a two- fold object, to better their worldly condition, and for freedom to worship God. Religious persecution in Europe drove to the new world the best immigrants that people this county. The Catholic Irish, now found in considerable numbers in the county, began their migration at a much later period, although from the earliest time an occasional Irishman made his home in Penn's new province. Before the arrival of Europeans Bucks county was occupied, and the soil owned, by Indians known as the Lenni Lenape, or original people, who dwelt on both banks of the Delaware from the mouth to its source, and reaching to the Susquehanna in the interior. They were divided into a number of minor tribes, speaking as many dialects of the same common language. The English called them the Delaware Indians because they lived upon that river. The greater portion of those who lived within the present limits of the county were known as Neshaminies, probably from the name of one of our largest and most beautiful streams. The Lenni Lenapes originally came from the valley of the Mississippi, whence they were driven by more powerful neighbors, and sought a quiet home on the banks of the Delaware. The Europeans found them a mild, amiable and kindly-disposed people, and on their first arrival, the Indians assisted to feed them, and in some instances, the early settlers would probably have starved without the friendly help of their red neighbors. Gabriel Thomas, in his early account of Pennsylvania, says of the Indians: - "The children are washed in cold water as soon as born, and to harden them they are plunged into the river. They walk at about nine months. The boys fish until about fifteen when they hunt, and if they have given good proof of their manhood by a large return of skins, they are allowed to marry, usually at about seventeen or eighteen. The girls stay with their mothers, and help to hoe the ground, plant corn and bear burdens. They marry at about thirteen or fourteen. Their houses are made of mats or the bark of trees set upon poles not higher than a man, with grass or reeds spread on the ground to lie upon. They live chiefly on maize or Indian corn roasted in the ashes, sometimes beaten and boiled with water, called hominy. They also eat beans and peas. The woods and the river furnish the greater part of their provisions. They eat but two meals a day, morning and evening. They mourn a whole year, but it is no other than blacking their faces." Proud says: "The Indians along the Delaware and the adjacent parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, so far as appears by the best accounts of the early settlement of the provinces, when clear of the effects of the pernicious poison of strong liquor, and before they had much imbibed, and, to their unnatural depravity, added such European vices as before they were strangers to, were naturally, and in general, faithful and hospitable." Before the settlements along the Delaware fell into the hands of the English, the Dutch authorities prohibited the selling of powder, shot, and strong liquors to the Indians, under pain of death. Isaac Still (10) was a celebrated Indian, of good education, and the leader of the last remnant of the Delaware tribe adjacent to Philadelphia. His only son Joshua was educated at Germantown. In 1771 Isaac Still moved up into Buckingham where he collected the scattered remains of his tribe, and in 1775 he, with fo rty persons, started off to the Wabash. These were mostly females, the men having gone before. Still is described as a fine-looking man (11), wearing a hat ornamented with feathers. The women marched off in regular order, bareheaded, each with a large pack on her back fastened with large straps across the forehead. (10) In 1679 the following Indian chiefs were living along the Delaware from Cold spring up to about Taylorsville: Mamerakickan, Anrichtan, Sackoquewano, and Nanneckos. (11) Samuel Preston. Among the prominent Indians, natives of the county, were Captain Harrison, born in Buckingham, and intended for the Delaware chieftain, and Teedyuscung, a man of superior natural abilities, who spoke English and could read and write. The bones of the great Tamany, the affable, are said to repose in the valley of the beautiful Neshaminy. Captain Harrison refused to leave his aged mother when she was seized with the small-pox, and he fell a victim to it, and was buried on the Indian tract. In 1690 there were several settlements of Indians in Buckingham and Solebury, on the Fell, Pownall, and Streaper tracts. They were peaceably inclined and sometimes supplied the settlers with meats and vegetables. Their children and those of the whites played together. On the farm of Henry Beans, Buckingham, is a spring that still bears the name of Indian spring, from the fact that Indians encamped about it many years after the country was well settled. Peg Tuckemony, who lived on the Street road above Sands's corner, and employed herself making baskets, is said to have been the last of her race in Buckingham. She is remembered by the present generation, and she made a school basket for Simon Meredith, now of Doylestown, when he was a school-boy. Isaiah, her husband, died about 1830. End of Chapter III