THE HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, CHAPTER XXII, HILLTOWN, 1722. from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time by W. W. H. Davis, A.M., 1876 and 1905* editions.. Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Thera Hammond. tsh@harborside.com 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. ___________________________________________________________________________________ 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. Note: Where names differ, the 1905 edition spelling is applied. ___________________________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER XXII HILLTOWN 1722 The line of English settlers. -Welsh and Germans appear. -First township organized north of Buckingham. -Israel Pemberton. -Rev'd William Thomas. -He builds a church. -His will. -John Vastine. -Change of the name. -The Funks.* -The Owens. -Land taken up. -Henry Lewis. -The Morrises. -Mathias.* -William Lunn. -Township organized. -The inhabitants meet. -Origin of township's name. -Jacob Appenzeller. -John Williams.* -The Beringers.* -Michael Snyder.* -Hilltown Baptist Church. -St. Peter's Church. -German Lutherans and Reformed. -Rev. Jacob Senn.* -Rev. Abrm. Berky.* -Villages. -Line Lexington, etc. -Roads. Bethlehem Road, old and new. -Population. -Surface of township. -Coal oil pipe line.* A line, drawn across the county at the point we have now reached in the organization of the townships, will about make the limit of country settled by English Friends. On the Delaware side they reached a little higher up, and peopled the lower parts of Plumstead, while toward Montgomery they fell short of it in Warwick and Warrington. Thus far the tidal wave of colonization had rolled up steadily from the Delaware, and township after township was formed as required by the wants of the population. But now we observe a different mode, as it were, in peopling the wilderness of central Bucks county. The immigrants came in through Philadelphia, now Montgomery, county, and were generally Welsh Baptists and German Lutherans and Reformed. A few English settlers planted themselves in the extreme northwest and northeast corners of the county, and a few other points, but the old current of immigration was apparently turned aside by the new movement that flanked it on the southwest. We have now to write about new races, with manners and customs and religious belief very different from the followers of William Penn. In the course of time the Germans spread themselves across the country to the Delaware, and upward to the Lehigh, while the Welsh, fewer in numbers and more conservative in action, confined their settlements to two or three townships on the southestern border. In this section of the county, we mean north of Buckingham, and extending nearly to the present northern limits of the county, were located three large land grants, that required subsequent legislation. These were the tracts belonging to the "Free Society of Traders," and the manors of Richlands and Perkasie. The first, containing nearly nine thousand acres, extended northwest from Buckingham, and embraced portions of Doylestown, Warwick and New Britain townships. The conveyance was made to the company by Penn before he left England in 1682, and it was surveyed to them before 1700. The manor of Richlands, which contained ten thousand acres, a reservation to the Penn family, lay mostly in the present township of Richland, and was laid out in 1703, while that of Perkasie contained the same number of acres, and embraced parts of Rockhill and Hilltown. According to Oldmixon, it was surveyed soon after 1700. A more extended account of these grants will be found in a subsequent chapter. With these exceptions, all the land of the region we are about to treat of was subject to private entry and purchase. Hilltown was the first township formed north of Buckingham. Settlers were here early in the last century, but it is impossible to tell when, and by whom, the wilderness was first penetrated. As was the case elsewhere, the first purchasers generally took up large tracts, and were not settlers. Among these we find Israel Pemberton, an original land-owner in Hilltown. The commission- ers of property conveyed to him two thousand acres on the 1st of October, 1716, [October 31, 1716*] in two contiguous tracts, which he sold to James Logan, September 26, 1723, and two days afterward Logan conveyed three hundred acres, in the central part of the township, to Reverend William Thomas, for 90 pounds. Mr. Thomas was one of the fathers of Hilltown, and one of the most reputable men who settled it. He was born in 1678, and came to America between 1702 and 1712. Missing the vessel in which he had taken passage, he lost all his goods, and was landed at Philadelphia with his wife and one son, penniless. He first went to Radnor township, Delaware county, where he followed his trade, a cooper, and preached for a few years, when he removed to Hilltown, where he probably settled before 1720. He became a conspicuous character, and influential, acquired a large landed estate, and settled each of his five sons and two daughters on a fine farm as they married. In 1737 he built what is known as the Lower meeting house, on a lot of four acres given by himself, where he preached to his death, in 1757. The pulpit was a large hollow poplar tree, raised on a platform, and in time of danger from the Indians he carried his gun and ammunition to church with him, and deposited them at the foot of the pulpit before he ascended to preach. In his will Mr. Thomas left the meeting house, and the grounds belong- ing, to the inhabitants of Hilltown. This sturdy sectarian excluded "Papists," "Hereticks," and "Moravians" from all rights in the meeting house and grounds, and "no tolerated minister," Baptist, Presbyterian, or other, was allowed to preach there who shall not believe in the Nicene creed, or the Westminster Confession of Faith, or "who will not swear allegiance to a Protestant king." His children married into the families of Bates, Williams, James, Evans, Days and Morris. Rebecca, the daughter of John, the second son of William Thomas, was the grandmother of [the late *] John B. Pugh, of Doylestown. The blood of William Thomas flows in the veins of several thousand persons in this and ad- joining states. The following inscription was placed on the tombstone of William Thomas in the old Hilltown church: "In yonder meeting-house I spent my breath; Now silent mouldering, here I lie in death; These silent lips shall wake, and you declare, A dread Amen, to truths I published there." Richard Thomas, in no wise related or connected with the Reverend William, was among the early settlers in Hilltown. His sons turned out badly. Two of them entered the British army during the Revolution, William known as "Captain Bill Thomas," and Evan the second son. The latter accepted a commission and raised a troop of horse. He made several incursions into the county, with which he was well acquainted, and was with the British at the Crooked Billet May 1, 1778, where he is charged with assisting to burn our wounded in buck- wheat straw. He went to Nova Scotia at the close of the war, but subsequently returned to Hilltown and took his family to his new home. There he was a black sheep, in a political sense, in the Jones family. Edward Jones, a man of capacity and enterprise, served first in the American army, but discouraged by defeat and disaster, he raised a troop of cavalry among his tory friends and neighbors and joined the British at Philadelphia. His farm near Leidytown was confiscated. In 1744, Thomas Jones purchased three hundred and twenty- seven and one-half acres of Lawrence Growden's executor for 327 pounds 10s, which he settled and improved. John Vastine, by which name he is known, a descendant of Dutch ancestors, arrived about the time of William Thomas. Before 1690, Abraham Van de Woestyne immigrated from Holland to New York, with his three children, John, Catherine and Hannah. In 1698 we find them at Germantown, where they owned real estate, and the two daughters joined the Society of Friends. About 1720 John sold his land at Germantown and removed to Hilltown, where he bought a considerable tract of Jeremiah Langhorne. His quaint dwelling, long since town down, with gable to the road, stood on the Bethlehem pike, about two miles northwest of Line Lexington and four from Sellersville. His name is found on nearly all the original petitions for opening roads in Hilltown, and on that addressed to the court at Bristol, dated March 8, 1724, from the inhabitants of "Perchichi,"(1) asking that the draft of Hilltown may be recorded, where his name is spelled Van de Woestyne. He died in 1738. The names of three of his children are known, Abraham, Jeremiah and Benjamin. The latter joined the Friends, and in 1730 applied to the Gwynedd monthly meeting for permission to hold meetings in his house. Abigail Vastine, granddaughter of John, the founder of the family, and a woman of great personal beauty, which she inherited from her Holland ancestors, married Andrew Armstrong. John Vastine has numerous descendants in Chester, Northumberland, and other counties in this state, and in Kentucky and some of the Western states. (1) Perkasie. There is, perhaps, no more curious circumstance connected with the history of names in this State than that relating to this family. The original name was Van de Woestyne, which, in the course of time, by a gradual change in the orthography, became Wostyne, Voshne, Vashtine, and Vastine, as now spelled. The original settler was oftener called "Wilderness" than by any other name, which many supposed was given him because he had pushed his way among the first into the woods. At that day the Dutch and Germans were somewhat in the habit of translating their patronymics into English, and accordingly "Van de Woestyne" became "of the wilderness." After this the orthography has not much improved, for we find it written Wilderness, Van de Wilderness, etc., etc. Gradually the original name was abandoned altogether, and Vastine adopted in its stead. The Funks, of Bucks county and several other states of the Union, are descended from Henry Funk, an immigrant from the Palatinate, 1719, settled at Indian Creek, Montgomery Co. He married Anna, daughter of Christian Meyers; was the father of ten children, John, Henry, Christian, Abraham, Esther, Barbara, Anne, Mary, Fronecka and Elizabeth; built the first mill on Indian Creek, and well educated for the time, became a Bishop in the Moravian Church, dying 1760. His eldest son, John, settled near the present Blooming Glen, Hilltown, married, and was a prosperous farmer, and was the grandfather of Henry and Isaac Funk, New Britain. Another descendant, David Funk, married Catharine Godshalk, removed to Westmoreland Co., and became a Mennonite minis- ter. Henry, the second son of Bishop Funk, dismissed from the Mennonite Church for supporting the Colonies in the Revolution, became a preacher among the Funkites, and migrated to Rockingham Co., Va., 1786, with his family, whence they spread over the Southern and Western States. One of the sons was a noted musician and publisher of music. Christian Funk, third son of John, born 1731, and died 1811, and eldest son of Henry, the immigrant, also dismissed from the Mennonite Church for supporting the Colonies, joined the Funkites. Some of his descendents became prominent, among them the late Charles Hunsicker, Norristown; Dr. A. H. Fetterolf, LL.D., President Girard College; and S. M. Ashenfelter, Colorado Springs. Abraham Funk, fourth son of John, born 1734, died 1788, married May Landis, settled in Springfield on 300 acres and farmed and milled. He was impressed with his team during the Revolution, and witnessed the battle of Brandywine. Two of his daughters married into the Stover family. He was a member of Assembly, 1808-09. Abraham Funk was the grandfather of Henry S. Funk, Springtown. Among his descendants is Samuel F. Geil, a distinguished lawyer, Colorado. The Owen family,(2) Welsh, were among the earliest immigrants to this state and county, and some members of it became prominent in colonial days. Griffith Owen was a member of the colonial council from 1685 to 1707, John Owen was sheriff of Chester county in 1729-30-31; Owen Owen was coroner of Philadelphia in 1730, and sheriff of that city and county in 1728. Our Bucks county Griffith Owen is believed to have come from Wales in 1721, with a letter to the Mont- gomery church, and bought from four to six hundred acres in Hilltown, just west of Leidytown, [and built a home on it, 1727, *] where the old dwelling was recently torn down [which was torn down many years ago. He was Captain of the Associators, and served in Col. Alexander Graydon's regiment in the French and Indian war. Griffith Owen died October 18, 1764 at 70. *] He was in the Assembly eleven years, first appearing in 1749. As he followed the business of surveying and was a good clerk, he must have been a man of more than ordinary cultivation for the period. He married Margaret Morgan, probably of New Brit- ain, and had four children, Owen, Ebenezer, Levi and Rachel. Owen married Catharine Jones, and had four sons and four daughters, Abel, Griffith, Edward, Owen, Margaret, Sarah, Mary and Elizabeth. The eldest son, Owen Owen, jr., was a man of active, vigorous mind, of influence in his day, and lived to the age of ninety. He married Jane Hughes, daughter of Christopher Hughes of Bedminster, and had eight daughters, Catharine, Elizabeth, Ann, Jane, Mary, Margaret, Zillah and Hannah. John O. James, of Philadelphia, is the son of Catharine Owen, the eldest daughter, who married Abel H. James. Between William Thomas's three hundred acres, bought of James Logan, and Griffith Owen, a settler named Buskirk took up a large tract, and the Shannon family took up land west of Owen. (2) The name "Owen" is that of a distinguished Welsh family. In the Welsh genealogical book, the line may be traced back for many generations, till we find it descending from a Welsh Prince honored among his countrymen. From Lower's "Dictionary of Family Names," we learn that Owen is a personal name in Wales. Most of our Owens are from that principality, but it is possible a few may be of Saxon blood, for there is an Owine in the Doomsday Book soon after 1066. A still earlier Owine occurs in the Cody Diplomatises. It is the most common of Welsh surnames. The commoner of Welsh patronymics has tended to a great confusion of Welsh of the gentle and simple names in Wales. In ancient families the patronymic became a sta- tionary family name about the time of Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth. The Owens of Tedomore Hall, Derbyshire, are descended from Howell Dda and the King of South Wales. There are thousands of Owens who bear the name simply because their fathers bore it as a Christian name. Edward Mathews. * The land in Hilltown was mostly taken up by 1720, and was chiefly owned by James Logan, Jeremiah Langhorne, Henry Paxson, probably of Solebury, William Thomas, James Lewis, who died in 1729, John Johnson, Evan Evans, Thomas Morris, Evan Griffith, Lewis Lewis, Bernard Young, John Kelley, Lewis Thomas and Margaret Jones, who died in 1727. A Margaret Jones died in Hilltown in 1807, at the age of ninety-five, probably her daughter, leaving one hundred and fifteen living descendants, of whom sixty were in the third and eleven in the fourth generation. These landowners were probably all residents of the township except Logan, Langhorne and Paxson. The manor of Perkasie occupied from a half to one-third of Hilltown. This section of the country was better known by the name of Perkasie than by any other down to the time it was organized into town- ships, and was designated Upper and Lower Perkasie, the former referring to what is now Rockhill. The major part of the settlers were Welsh Baptists, and co- workers with William Thomas. Henry Lewis, a Welshman, was settled in Hilltown, probably as early as 1730. He is said to have been a political offender against the British government, and "left his country for his country's good." He bought about three hundred acres lying on either side of the Bethlehem turnpike, a mile from Line Lexington, also an hundred acres a mile west of Doylestown, near Vauxtown, and the same quantity at Whitehallville [now Chalfont *] which covered the site of the tavern property and extended up the west branch of the Neshaminy. He married Margaret, daughter of William James. His son Isaac Lewis, born in 1743, a soldier of the Revolu- tion, was shot through the leg on Long Island while setting fire to some wheat- stacks that had fallen into possession of the British, and his comrades rescued him with great difficulty. He was with the army at Valley Forge, and from there was sent to Reading, probably as an invalid, whence he was brought home by his parents. Jefferson Lewis, the grandson of Henry, an intelligent old gentleman, a school-teacher for many years, lives [lived *] on the ancestral property. He has [had *] in his possession the veritable old Welsh Bible, that was brought over by his ancestor, in which is written "Henry Lewis, 1729," and a record of his children. Several families of Lewises settled in Hilltown, but were not all related to each other. Jeremiah purchased land in the northern part of the township. James Lewis was there early, but removed with his family to Virginia before the Revolution. The Lewises living in this township and adjoining parts of Montgomery are principally the descendants of Henry. In the early days of these Welsh settlements Edward Eaton, probably a step-son of Jeremiah Lewis, was the only man among them honored with the title of "Doctor," but his knowledge of the healing art was as limited as his practice. Moses Aaron, the ancestor of the Aaron family, settled near the New Britain line a mile east of Line Lexington, between 1725 and 1730, where he bought a farm, improved it, and raised a family of children. The Mathias family were early settlers in Hilltown, and the descendants are numerous. The American ancestor was John Mathias, born in Pembrokeshire, Wales, 1675; immigrated 1722-23, with a second wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Morgan, and a family of young children, and with other Welshmen; settled in Franconia township, now Montgomery county, near the Bucks line, about where Souderton stands. The locality took the name of Welshtown. John Mathias mar- ried a third wife about 1740, a widow, and died, 1748. Among his children were, Mary, born in Wales, Griffith, 1727, Thomas, 1730, Mathias, 1732, John, 1734, and David, 1737. The Mathias homestead was in Hilltown, a mile west of Dublin, near the Bethlehem road; the dwelling, a Colonial house, is still standing, unless torn down recently, and well preserved. It was built at two periods, the Eastern end bearing date, 1750, the Western, 1768. The late Rev'd Joseph Mathias, the most distinguished member of the family, in the past, was a grand- son of John, the immigrant, and the youngest son of Thomas by a second wife. He was born May 8, 1778, baptised September 29, 1799, ordained to the ministry Jul 22, 1806, and died March 11, 1851, in his seventy-third year. During his pastoral life he attended upwards of seven hundred funerals and preached six thousand eight hundred and seventy-five sermons. The children of John Mathias intermarried with the families of Griffith, Jones, Thomas, and Pugh, and among the descendants of John Mathias was Mathias Morris, a prominent member of the Bucks county bar, member of the State Senate and of Congess. The widow of Joseph Mathias died 1870, at the age of ninety-three. The Houghs, New Britain, connected with the Mathiases by marriage, were descended from Richard, whose son Joseph married Elizabeth West. Her parents were early settlers in Warwick, and she was a sister of Joseph Mathias's grandmother on the maternal side. Joseph and Elizabeth Hough had sons Richard, Joseph, and John and seven dau- ghters. The late General Joseph Hough, Point Pleasant was a descendant of Joseph the elder. The Morrises were English Friends, who arrived shortly after William Penn, and settled in Byberry. It is not known at what time they came into this country, but Thomas Morris was in Hilltown before 1722, and some of the family were in New Britain as early as 1735, and probably earlier. Morris Morris, a son of Cadwallader, and grandson of the first immigrant, married Gwently, daughter of the Reverend William Thomas, from which union come the Morrises of this county. They had nine children. Benjamin, the third son, became quite celebrated as a manufacturer of clocks, and occasionally one of the old- fashioned, two-story affairs of his make, with the letters "B. M." engraved on a brass plate on the face, is met with. He was the father of Enos Morris, who learned his father's trade, but afterward studied law with Judge Ross, at Easton, and was admitted to the bar about 1800. He was a leading member of the Baptist church, and a man of great integrity of character. Benjamin Morris, sheriff of the county nearly half a century ago, was a brother of Enos. Enoch Morris, next younger than Benjamin, had a son James, who fell into the hands of the Algerines, and was one of those liberated by Commodore Decatur. He married a Miss Hebon, of Philadelphia, and settled at Cincinnati, and one of their sons graduated at West Point. William Lunn, from England, was an early settler, whose son Joseph married Alice, the daughter of Lewis Evans. The latter was an unwilling immigrant. He was on ship-board bidding good-bye to friends about to embark for America, when the vessel sailed, and he was obliged to accompany her. William and Alice Lunn had nine children, who married into the families of Jones, Griffith, Brittain, Vastine, Thomas, and Mathew. Joseph, the third son, was killed in 1770, by being thrown from his wagon and run over in Germantown, on his return from market. William, the second son, joined the British army while it occupied Philadelphia, in 1778, and never returned home. William Bryan was a purchaser of real estate in Hilltown in 1743, probably the same who settled in Spring- field. Hilltown was laid out and organized into a township in the fall of 1722. The inhabitants held several meetings on the subject, and there does not appear to have been entire unanimity among them. In the summer of that year a meeting "of several inhabitants of Perkasie" was called at the house of Evan Griffith to petition the court for a road to Richard Michael's(3) mill. The question of a new township was evidently on their minds, for in a note at the bottom of the petition they say: "We agree that our township should be called 'Aberystruth,' unless it be any offense to our justis Lanorn."(4) Twelve names are signed to the petition, embracing most of those already mentioned as among the earliest settlers. On the 3d of August the inhabitants of Perkasie held another meeting to consider the matter of being erected into a township. They drew up and signed a petition to the court, in which they state, that having heard the inhabitants of that section are to be organized into a township with the "Society(5) and Muscamickan," they protest against it. They express a wish to be formed into a township by themselves, "to begin at the Long Eiland lind and run it along with the county line to Parkyowman."(6) They further state that they had lately fixed upon a place to "make a school-house" upon Perkasie, probably the first school-house in the township. The petition, signed by eleven of the inhabitants, was carried to Bristol by Evan Griffith, a long journey through the woods in that day. (3) Richard Mitchell, of Wrightstown, the "Swamp road." * (4) Jeremiah Langhorne, then on the county bench. (5) The settlements in New Britain were then called the "Society," because the land formerly belonged to the "Free Society of Traders." The locality of "Muscamickan" is not known. (6) Perkiomen. We have no record of any further action being taken by the inhabitants in the matter of a township, nevertheless it was ordered and laid out that year. The only draft we have been able to get sight of, and which probably accompan- ied the return of the surveyor, gives it the shape of a parallelogram, except an offset of eighty perches, with the angles all right, and it contains the names of all the land-owners except Jeremiah Lewis. It has been thought the township was named after William Hill, who was mayor of Philadelphia in 1710, speaker of the Assembly in 1715, and a judge of the Supreme Court in 1726. It was called "Hill township" in 1725.(7) It is probable, however, that it was called "Hilltown" because of the rolling and hilly nature of its surface.(8) The present area is fourteen thousand five hundred and twenty acres. It is well-watered by the tributaries of the north-east branch of the Perkiomen, and some of the branches of the Neshaminy. The soil is fertile, and agriculture the only interest that receives particular attention. In 1759 two thousand five hundred acres of the manor of Perkasie, lying in Rockhill and Hilltown, were given by the Proprietary to the University of Pennsylvania, on condition that it should never be alienated. (7) In old deeds for land in New Britain we find that township was called "Hillton" down to 1735, twelve years after it had been organized. (8) As there are several townships and parishes in England called "Hillton," it is possible the name finds its origin there, with a slight change in spelling. We have met with but little success in getting reliable accounts of the German families of Hilltown, which race now forms a large part of the popula- tion. About 1735 Jacob Appenzeller, an immigrant from Switzerland, settled in the township. He married into the Oberholtzer family, and lived on the farm owned by the late Elias Hartzell, forty-five years, and died about 1780. He had two sons, Henry and Jacob. The former is supposed to have joined the British army in the Revolutionary war, as he was never afterward heard of, while Jacob married into the Savacool family, and remained in Hilltown. He had two sons and one daughter, Henry, Jacob, and Elizabeth. Henry settled in Greene county, in this state, and Jacob married Elizabeth Ulp, had three children, and died in 1863, at the age of eighty-one. Gideon Appenzeller, of Hilltown, is the young- est son. Elizabeth, the daughter of Jacob, married George Miller, of Rockhill, where she now [1876] lives. John Williams, thought to be a descendant of Roger Williams, Rhode Island, settled in Hilltown prior to 1740, and was a member of the Baptist church. His farm, partly in New Britain, was northwest of New Galena. His son William, was educated at Brown University, graduating in the first class, 1769, at the age of twenty-one. He was born, 1748, died 1823, and was pastor of a Baptist church at Wrentham, Massachusetts, for forty-eight years. The father died about 1786, intestate. The son William, preached at New Britain at one time, but was not the settled pastor. The daughter, Rebecca, married William James. The other children of John Williams were: Sarah, Isaac, and Elizabeth. The Rev. William Williams had a famous debate with David Evans, a noted Universalist, at New Britain church. The descendants are living at Providence, Rhode Island. The Beringers of Hilltown are descended from Nicholas Beringer, a German immigrant, the date of whose arrival is not known. The 26th of June, 1777, he bought of John Penn one hundred and forty acres in the manor of Perkasie, marked No. 10 on the plat, for 350 pounds, charged with an annual rent of an ear of corn, to be paid on the 24th of June. It is probable he was in the township before this time. Nicholas Beringer was the great-grandfather of Amos Beringer, a resident of Hilltown. Michael Snyder bought one hundred and thirty-six acres in the manor, plat No. 12 of the plan, June 19th, the same year, probably the first of the name who settled there. In Hilltown are four churches, two Baptist, one union, Lutheran and Re- formed, and one Mennonite. We have already spoken of one Baptist church, that built by the Reverend William Thomas, and known as the Lower meeting-house, where he leaned his rifle against the hollow log that served as pulpit, before he began to preach. The second of this denomination, called Hilltown Baptist church, was constituted in 1781 with fifty-four members, although service was held there several years before. It was the off-shoot of the Montgomery church, the parent of Baptist churches in this section of Montgomery and Bucks, and until regularly constituted the members went thither to take communion. The first pastor was John, the second son of Reverend William Thomas, born at Radnor in 1711, called to the ministry in 1749, ordained in 1751, and became pastor at Montgomery at the death of Benjamin Griffith. He had charge of both the Hill- town churches, and at the same time preached for a small congregation among the "Rocks," north of Tohickon. At the death of Mr. Thomas, in 1790, he was suc- ceeded by Reverend James McLaughlin. The Reverend Joseph Mathias was chosen and ordained pastor in 1806, who officiated there until his death in 1851. His mother died in 1821, at the age of eighty-six. The present pastor is the Reverend Mr. Jones, a Welshman, who was ordained in the fall of 1875. The immediate organization of this church is due to the prevailing difference in political sentiment during the Revolution. The inhabitants of Hilltown were much divided, the whigs probably predominating, but the tories were strong in force. Both sides were exceedingly bitter. The tories refused to take the oath of allegiance to the new government, but they were obliged to give their paroles not to leave the county. This was a great inconvenience to them, as they lived near the county line, across which they were accustomed to go on business, for pleasure, and to attend the Montgomery church, of which most of them were members. This situation afforded the whigs a good opportunity to annoy their less loyal neighbors, which they were not slow to avail themselves of. On one occasion while the tories were attending church, a vengeful neighbor had them arrested and taken before a justice of the peace, but the latter understanding the cause discharged them. This unpleasant condition of things hastened the formation of a new congregation, and the Hilltown church was constituted ac- cordingly. Whigs and tories were united peaceably in the work. In the next two years there was an addition of forty members, making ninety-four in all. Of the constituent members thirteen were Thomases, six Brittains, and five Mathiases. The Hilltown church was torn down in April, 1875, preparatory to rebuilding. In the corner-stone were found three pieces of silver coin, one ten and two five cent pieces, coined in 1802 and 1803. The documents, when ex- posed to the atmosphere, blew away like ashes. The old house was built in 1804. Saint Peter's church, Lutheran and Reformed, on the Bethlehem road a mile and a half from Line Lexington, was erected in 1804-5, on a lot conveyed by the heirs of Abraham Cope, the 18th of June, 1803. At the corner-stone laying were present Reverends Messrs. Thomas, Pomp, and Senn, Reformed, and Messrs. Yager, George Roeller, and Rewenack, Lutheran. [The first pastor was Rev. Jacob Senn, who preached his first sermon April 1, 1805. *] The house was of stone, forty- five by thirty-eight feet, with galleries on three sides, and an elevated pul- pit, and seats for about five hundred persons. When erected it was one of the handsomest places of worship in this section of the county. During the [first*] seventy years that it stood not over six hundred dollars were spent to keep it in repair. The Reformed congregation numbers about four hundred, and in the last [forty years several*] new congregations have been built up from it. The Lutheran pastors, in succession, have been Messrs. Mench, Wyand, William B. Kemmerer, for thirty years, and F. Berkemeyer, who [was in charge many years*] has been in charge for the last sixteen years [and the present pastor is Rev. M. J. Kuehner.*] The pastors on the Reformed side served as follows: Reverends George Wack, 1805 to 1827. In 1821 J. W. Dechant supplied for Wack while he was a member of the Legislature. Henry Gerhart, 1827 to 1834. H. S. Bassler, 1834 to 1839, I. W. Haugen, 1840 to 1842, A. Berky, 1843 to 1845, J. Naille, 1845 to 1852, A. L. Dechant, 1852 to 1858. Without a pastor from 1858 to 1860. W. R. Yearick, commenced his pastorate in 1860 [and was installed the following February. At his first communion, May 25, 1861, there were present one hundred and ninety-six communicants, thirty-six received into the church by confirma- tion. The congregation of St. Luke's church constitute part of the Hilltown charge.*] During the existence of this congregation, the pastorates of Rever- ends Dechant and Yearick were the most prosperous. The congregation at present numbers two hundred and seventy-five [some three hundred*] members. The Rever- end Abraham Berky subsequently joined the Dutch Reformed church, and died in 1867 at the age of sixty-two. The Reverend Peter S. Fisher, pastor of this church, was struck with fatal illness while preaching there, May 22, 1873. Some ten years ago [Many years ago*] an organ was bought for the church at a cost of $4,000. In 1870 the Hilltown cemetery association, a chartered company, laid out a burial-ground opposite the church across the turnpike, containing nine acres. Trees and evergreens have been planted, and the walks graveled. The church has shedding for two hundred horses. Down to March, 1875, there had been very little alteration in the old building, but it was then town down and a new house erected on its site. Saint Luke's church, Reformed and Lutheran, of Dublin, is a brick structure, built in 1870. The Reverend William R. Yearick was elected the Reformed pastor, and organized with fourteen members. It now has a membership of ninety-three [over a hundred*] and a flourishing Sunday school. Reverend Mr. Fritz is pastor of the Lutheran congregation. [Among the subsequent pastors were the Reverends Fritz, Lutheran, to 1899, A. R. Horn, 1883, J. W. Magin, 1888, R. B. Lynch and others.*] The German Lutherans,(9) though numerous in Pennsylvania, had none to preach to them in their own tongue until John Peter Miller, a graduate of Heidelberg, arrived in Philadelphia, and was ordained by Tennent, Andrews and Boyd in 1730. In 1729 many Lutherans removed from New York to Berks county, among which was the well-known Conrad Weiser. The name German Reformed was changed to the Reformed church of the United States in 1869. It is derived from the Reformed church of Germany and Switzerland as distinguished from the Lutherans. The latter agrees with the Reformed church in holding the Heidelberg catechism as its Confession of Faith, but differs from it, in not requiring its members to subscribe to the Belgic Confession and the articles of the Synod of Dordrecht. It is the oldest of Protestant denominations which are generally known as "Reformed churches." It has been weakened in Europe by the union of portions of the Lutheran and Reformed churches to form the "Evangelical church of Germany," but it still numbers some eight or ten millions of communicants. Scattered members of the Reformed church came to Pennsylvania soon after Penn settled the province. In a few years they began to arrive in large numbers, and the Reformed constituted the larger portion of the German immigration. In 1730 they numbered upward of fifteen thousand in this state. Subsequently Lutheran immigration became more numerous, and the Reformed have ever since continued in the minority. The first German Reformed church in Pennsylvania is said to have been erected at Skippack, Montgomery county, in 1726, but other churches claim the same honor. In the United States this denomination numbers about one thousand three hundred churches and one hundred and thirty thousand communicants. In this county the Dutch Reformed established churches several years before the German Reformed, and the pastors of the former churches cooper- ated cordially with their German brethren, preached for congregations that had no pastors of their own, and they were admitted members of the German Synod. The harmony and Christian fraternity in which Lutheran and Reformed worship in the same church convey a lesson that should not be lost on other denominations. The Methodist church at Mount Pleasant, in Hilltown, built about 1842, grew out of a camp-meeting held in the neighborhood, the first in the upper end of the county. (9) The Reformed church one of the strongest German religious bodies in Bucks county, and all north of Doylestown. The classical report, 1897, gives the number of congregations at 28, membership, 9,800; communicants, 8,012; number of Sunday-schools, 48; scholars, 4,000; and during the year the contributions for benevolent purposes was $6,100 and congregational, $29,000. As evidence of the rapid growth of the denomination in the past twelve or fifteen years: The contributions for congregational purposes have doubled in this period, the attendance and membership both largely increased, and the Sunday school scolars from 1,500 to 4,000. * The villages of Hilltown, or which she claims in part or in whole, are Line Lexington, Dublin and Leidytown, all small places. The first named, in the south-western corner of the township, lays along both sides of the county line between Bucks and Montgomery, and is in two counties and three townships. [It was first called Lexington. About 1810, when Henry Leidy began making hats there and putting his name in them, the village name was changed to Line Lexington, 1827, when the post-office was established. The first post-master was named Sinnickson. About 1800, a tavern, store and a few houses scattered along the road constituted the village generally known as "Middletown" from being half way on the stage road between Philadelphia and the Lehigh. Jacob Clemens kept the tavern eighty years ago and was there as early as 1800. The first stage to pass what is now Line Lexington was September 10, 1763, from Bethlehem to Philadelphia.*] It contains about forty [fifty*] dwellings, with a population of 250, one tavern, two stores, three smiths and a coach-shop. The tavern is built on the line between New Britain and Hilltown, and while the landlord behind the bar stands in the latter township, the customer who takes a drink stands in the former. The landlord sleeps on the New Britain side of the house, and votes in Hilltown. An extension of the village has been laid out on the farm of Casper Wack, but there is no present prospect of much improvement. Hatfield township, Montgomery county, shares the honors with Line Lexington. At this point the Bethlehem turnpike, in its course from the Lehigh to Phila- delphia, being half-way between these two places, horses and coaches were changed, and the passengers took dinner. Among the earliest settlers in and about the village were the families of Trewig, Harman, Snare, and Clemens. The post-office is in Montgomery county, but we do not know when it was established. Dublin is in the extreme eastern section of the township, on the Swamp road, and lies partly in Bedminster, in which township it will be further noticed. Leidytown, a flourishing little village on the Old Bethlehem road, contains some twenty dwellings, and a Methodist church, built about 1846. Half a mile above, on the same road, is the hamlet of Mount Pleasant, consisting of half a dozen houses, the seat of Hilltown post-office, established in 1817, with Elisha Lunn for postmaster. Within a few years "Myers' store," two miles west of Dublin, has grown to a place of twenty dwellings, several of them brick, with a brick yard and the usual assortment of mechanics, and now known as Blooming Glen. The Moyers or Myers, were early settlers in that section, which contains large landowners. Near the village is Perkasie meeting house, Mennonite, attended by a large congregation; Blooming Glen, in the eastern part of the township, has a popu- lation of three hundred and is the largest village in the township. Silverdale, on the turnpike between Dublin and Telford, was first called "Portland," then "Lawndale," and subsequently changed to its present name, has a population of two hundred and fifty. * We have seen no record of roads in Hilltown earlier than 1730. In that year one was laid out from "Pleasant spring run by Bernard Young's land" to the county line near Graeme park. This was an outlet for the settlers at the Great swamp, Rockhill and Hilltown, to the lower mills and Philadelphia. Four years afterward a road was opened from Charles Morris's, by Perkasie school-house, to the Old Bethlehem road. About the same time a road was opened from Thomas Morris's to that from Sellersville to Whitehallville, which led via what is now Doylestown to Newtown, then the county seat. The road from the Swamp road to the Hilltown Baptist church was laid out in 1766. At that day the Swamp road was a much traveled highway to the lower part of the county. The two Bethlehem roads, known as the Old and the New, which run through Hilltown, were laid out at an early day. Books were opened for subscription to stock to turnpike the Bethlehem road; from Trewig's tavern via Sellersville, in June, 1806. The first enumeration of inhabitants, in 1784, gives Hilltown 941 whites and 154 dwellings. In 1810 the population was 1,335; 1820, 1,501; 1830, 1,669, and 378 taxables; 1840, 1,910; 1850, 2,290 whites and 11 blacks; 1860 2,726, all whites, and in 1870, 2,869, of which 2,764 were whites, 5 blacks, and 129 were foreign-born[; 1880, 3,152; 1890, 3,022; 1900, 3,170.*] The surface of Hilltown is rolling and hilly, and is watered by the branches of the Neshaminy and Perkiomen. Hilltown was the birthplace of two members of the House of Representatives of the United States, John Pugh and Matthias Morris. In 1897, a pipe line to convey coal oil from Millway, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, to Bayonne, New Jersey, was laid across Bucks county. Entering the county at Telford it passes through the townships of Hilltown, Plumstead and Solebury, leaving below Center Bridge and crossing the Delaware into Hunter- don county, New Jersey. The pipes are eight inches in diameter and laid below the frost line; and the time occupied in laying them was four months. A tele- graph line follows the pipe line. When full they have a capacity of three hundred and twenty barrels to the mile, and, when in full working order the company can pump from eight thousand to ten thousand barels a day. At Millway is the largest an dmost complete pumping station in the world. The oil is delivered at Bayonne by force pumps and thence distributed to the refineries. The line is the property of the "National Transit Company." END OF CHAPTER XXII.