THE HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, CHAPTER XXIII, NEW BRITAIN, 1723 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 1905 edition contributed by Donna Bluemink. dbluemink@cox.net 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 XXIII NEW BRITAIN 1723 Thomas Hudson's grant. -Colonel Mildmay*. -The Free Society of Traders. -Joseph Kirkbride*. -Earliest settlers. -Welsh families. -Perkasie. -Settlers on West Branch. -Simon Butler. -Grist mill built. -Simon Mathew. -Old houses. -Thomas Jones. -John Mathias. -Owen Rowland. -The Griffiths. -The Aarons*. -The James family. -John O. James. -Boorums*. -Joseph Kirkbride. -Thomas Morgan. -The Riales. -Township organized. -Mathew Hines*. -Nicholas Haldeman. -Germans arrive. -Abraham Swartly. -John Haldeman. -Atherholts*. -Donaldson homestead*. -Jacob Geil. -Detweilers*. -The Boones*. -The Brinkers, Reeses*, Garners, Wiers*, and Wigtons*. Bachmans. -Jacob Reed*. - Shutts. -New Britain, a Welsh settlement. -Settlers generally Baptists. -New Britain church. -Line Lexington church. -Some accounts of Mennonites. -Universalist congregation. -David Evans. -Roads. -Tammany. -Villages. -Chalfont. -Prospectville. -Morgan's ford. -Population. -Colonel Rheidt.*. The formation of Hilltown, 1722, left a considerable tract of unorganized country lying to the south-east, and extending eastward to Plumstead and Buckingham. The following year a part of this territory was organized into New Britain, and a century later Doylestown [township, with slices from Warwick and Buckingham,*]was carved out of it. We learn from Holmes' map, that the country north-west of Buckingham, and embracing parts of the three townships named, had been granted to Thomas Hudson, "a gentleman of Sutton, England," Colonel Mildmay (1), of whom [little*] is known, and to a corporation called the "Free Society of Traders," whose lands were sold to several purchasers some years later, and the corporation dissolved. (1) Colonel Mildmay's grant was west of the Society's land, the Hudson tract, and joining them, according to Holmes's map, 1684. We do not believe Mildmay was ever in Pennsylvania, at least there is no evidence of it. The family is an old one in England, descended from a "very ancient gentleman," Hugh Mildmay, who lived about King Stephen's time, now 430 years past, prior to the certificate of Robert Cooke, alias Clarencieux, Roy D. Armes, dated at London the 20th of August, Anno D'ni, 1583, and in ye 23d year of the reign of our Sou'aigne Lady Elizabeth by ye grace of God, etc." Hugh Mildmay is thought to have come with King Stephen. The grant of arms to Sir Walter Mildmay was by Edward VI. These abstracts are from the Heraldic Collection of R. Glober, relating to the Mildmay family. Harlein Mss. No. 243.* Hudson's grant from Penn, dated April 23d, 1683, for five thousand acres, was among the very first land located by an individual in what is now New Britain. Its boundaries are hard to define, but it probably lay south-west of the Society lands on Pine run, and extended to the county line. It appears to have conflicted with the grant of Dennis Rotchford, and when the patent was issued it called for only four thousand acres. March 1st, 1689, Hudson sold to William Lawrence, Joseph and Samuel Thorn, John Tallman, and Benjamin Field, of Long Island, and in a few years the whole of the tract passed into the possession of several individual proprietors (2). The Society grant contained originally eight thousand six hundred and twelve acres. Subsequent to the patent, T. Stevenson made a survey which cut off one thousand two hundred and thirty-two acres, probably the amount bought by him. In 1706 another survey, no doubt a sale, cut off two thousand three hundred and ninety acres more, leaving about four thousand nine hundred and eighty-four acres in the hands of the corporation. This T. Stevenson was probably the Thomas Stevenson who, in 1719, purchased the Hudson tract of the five Long Island owners. The Society tract in this county ran one thousand one hundred and sixty-eight perches along the Buckingham and Plumstead line, and south-west of that line one thousand three hundred and sixteen perches after the Stevenson survey was cut off. These two tracts, so far as we know, furnished no settlers to the town-ship until several years after 1700, although some of our local antiquarians tell us that Lewis Evans was in New Britain as early as 1695. This is just possible, although we have seen no confirmation of it. A Lewis Evan was an early settler in Hilltown, whose daughter, Elizabeth, was married to John James, the grandfather of Isaiah James, in 1740, and we learn from the books of the surveyor-general, that in 1735 Lewis Evan or Evans, purchased one hundred acres of the Proprietaries' land in "North Britain." (2) In 1721 John Sotcher, Falls, conveyed 2,850 acres to Joseph Kirkbride, and, 1738, William James bought 277 acres of it. This was part of the Hudson tract. Sotcher's conveyance was a matter of form to complete the conveyance from the executors of Thomas Stephenson to Joseph Kirkbride, the latter being one of them.* New Britain, like Hilltown, was peopled by immigrants who came up through Philadelphia, now Montgomery county, who were part of the flanking current that met the English from the lower Delaware. Between 1700 and 1715, a number of Welsh families settled in the upper part of Philadelphia about Gwynedd and North Wales and naturally enough they soon found their way across the county line into the fertile territory of New Britain, and Hilltown, which then bore the name of Perkasie, or Perquasy. Among the early settlers on the west branch of Neshaminy and its affluents, were the families of Butler, Griffith, James, Lewis, Evans, Pugh, Williams, Owen, Davis, Meredith, Jenkins, Phillips, Mathews, Morris, Thomas, Jones, Mathias, Rowland and others, whose descendants still inhabit this and neighboring townships in large numbers. This whole region was then traversed by bands of Indians, who lived in huts in the timber along the streams, and subsisted by hunting and fishing. They gradually removed except the few which remained to die on the lands of their fathers. A few Germans came into the township soon after the Welsh; some bought land, while others leased of the Proprietaries, while others, still less enterprising, worked by the day or bound themselves for a term of years. Of these early immigrants to New Britain, Simon Butler was probably the foremost man. He was one of a number which immigrated from Wales about 1712, accompanied by his cousin Simon Mathew. Landing at Philadelphia, they settled for a time on the "London tract" in Chester county, ["Welsh tract," in New Castle county,*]whence they removed to New Britain between 1715 and 1720, and took up land at the confluence of Pine run and the north-west branch of Neshaminy, just east of Whitehallville [Chalfont*]. There they built a grist mill on the site of Samuel Funk's sawmill, the first in the township, and one of the earliest mills in middle Bucks county (3). In a few years Butler bought Mathew's interest in the tract, when he built a new grist-mill on the site of what is Shellenberger's (4). He became a large land-owner in the township. In 1745 he bought four hundred and sixty-five and a half acres of James, the son of Andrew Hamilton, to whom it had been granted in 1718. He was the only justice of the peace in this section of the county for several years. Simon Butler was a man of ability, and transacted a large amount of public business. He not only settled disputes between neighbors, but wrote their wills, surveyed their lands, settled their estates, assisted to lay out the public roads, etc. Such men are especially useful in a new community, and for several years he was the leading man in all this section. He was likewise an active Baptist, and promoted the erection of the New Britain Baptist church. His two sons, Simon and Benjamin, intermarried with the Jameses, and their descendants are numerous in the township. Simon Butler died in August, 1764. (3) It is a disputed point whether this mill or Dyer's mill, at Dyerstown, a mile above Doylestown, was the first in middle Bucks county. However this may be, these two were the earliest, and the only ones for a number of years. (4) The last mill that stood on the site of the old Butler mill was burned down at the close of the Civil was, winter of 1865, and not rebuilt.* [Simon Mathew, who came with Butler, was probably the ancestor of all who bear the name on the west side of the county, was the son of Thomas Mathew, Wales, and a Baptist. He was accompanied by Anthony Mathew, Arthur Melchoir and Margaret David. They arrived, 1710, and first settled on the Welsh tract, new Castle county, Delaware. He remained in Delaware ten years, and part of his children were born there, and came to new Britain, 1720. On November 18, 1731, Simon Mathew bought 147 acres of James Steel, and subsequently 167 acres of Jeremiah Longhorne. This was part of the Society's lands, laying between Chalfont and the village of New Britain, and intersected by the Doylestown and Bristol roads. His residence was at the late Mathias homestead, near the Butler mill, where he died 1755. He was the partner of Butler in the milling business. The homestead went to his son Thomas, and is still in the family. The late Doctor Charles H. Mathews, of Doylestown, was a grandson, and the farm of the late William Steckel, Doylestown, was part of their tract. The children of Simon Mathew were John, Simon, Benjamin, Thomas, Margaret, Ann, wife of Simon Morgan, and Edward. Benjamin, Simon and Edward settled in the valley of Virginia, and John received that portion of the homestead farm that embraced the last purchase. He was born, 1713. He built the one-story stone house on the north side of the Upper State road, 1744, to replace the one that burned down in September of that year, and it stood until about 1888, and was the oldest in the neighborhood. His wife Diana Thomas, born in Wales, 1718, and died, 1799. He died 1782.*] [John and Diana Mathew were the parents of seven children: Benjamin, Margaret married John Young, Mary married John Barton, Rachel married Thomas Meredith, Ann married John Doyle, Susannah married Owen Thomas, and Joseph, born 1739, died 1759. Benjamin, who was the eldest son, enlisted at sixteen, in Benjamin Franklin's regiment for the defense of the frontier, and served five months. John Mathew was the last justice of the peace under the Crown, holding the office from 1764 to 1776. His wife was a daughter of Ephraim Thomas, Hilltown, and granddaughter of Rev. William Thomas. He was a deacon at New Britain, and died 1821. Their children which grew to man and womanhood, married into the families of Hough, Dungan, Morris, Mathias, McEwen, Drake, Meredith, Swartz and Bitting. These marriages took place between 1769 and 1789, and the descendants are numerous. In 1814, Benjamin Mathew served in the campaign on the lower Delaware, when Philadelphia was threatened by the British, and Oliver, another descendant, was a member of the Assembly. Among the members of this numerous family were the following who belonged to the medical profession: Drs. John and Joseph, sons of Joseph Mathews, Dr. J. Mathews, Dr. Washington, and Dr. Charles Mathews. Edward Mathews, the historian, is also a descendant from the same ancestry. Joseph Mathews, a descendant of Simon, died in 1842, at the age of ninety- seven.*] (5). (5) The account of the Mathew family is from the 1905 edition. The old hipped-roof house at the end of John W. Griffith's lane, on the road from Chalfont to Montgomeryville, is the oldest dwelling in that part of the township. It was owned in 1769 by Joseph Hubbs, who then kept store in it. The father of Mr. Griffith, who remembered it in 1775, said it was an old house then, but it is not known by whom it was built. The Griffith homestead is nearly an hundred years old. Thomas Jones, born in Wales about 1708, came to this county at the age of eighteen, and settled in New Britain or Hilltown. He was twice married, the first time to Martha West, who died in 1759, and afterward to Jane Smith, and was the father of about twenty children. He acquired a large landed estate, and settled his sons around him. The mother of the Reverend Joseph Mathias was a daughter of Thomas Jones. [The Roberts family, also Welsh, in new Britain from 1721 to 1790, owned a tract half a mile square near Spruce Hill. John Roberts, the first purchaser, bought land of Joseph Kirkbride. They disappeared before the close of the century.*] John Mathias, the progenitor of this large and respectable family in Bucks county, was born in Pembrokeshire, South Wales, near the close of the seventeenth, and came here with the Welsh immigrants the beginning of the eighteenth, century. He settled in Franconia township, Montgomery county, near the Bucks county line, a few miles north-west of Line Lexington, which locality was called "Welsh town" within the memory of persons living. He was twice married before leaving Wales, his second wife being a daughter of Thomas Morgan, and his third, Jane Simons, a widow. He died in 1747 or 1748. The late Reverend Joseph Mathias, his grandson by his second wife, was born May 18, 1778, baptised September 29, 1799, ordained July 22, 1806, and died March 11, 1851, in his seventy-third year. During his pastoral life he attended upward 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. The Houghs, of New Britain, connected by marriage with the Mathiases, 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 mater nal side. Joseph and Elizabeth Hough had sons, Richard, Joseph and John, and seven daughters. The late Joseph Hough, of Point Pleasant, was a descendant of Joseph, the elder. Owen Rowland (6), with his first wife, Jane, four sons and one daughter, immigrated from Pembrokeshire, Wales, about 1725, settling first on the Welsh tract, in Delaware county. He removed to Bucks county in 1727 or 1728, and settled on the North Branch of Neshaminy. The majority of his descendants removed to the west many years ago, a grandson being among the first settlers at Uniontown, Fayette county, Pennsylvania. His fourth son, Stephen, from whom those bearing the name in this township are descended, lived, and died in New Britain at the age of ninety, in 1811. He was twice married, his first wife being Anna, daughter of Reverend William Thomas, and the second, Rebecca Davis, an English immigrant. They had five sons and two daughters, who married into the families of Brittain, Thomas, Morris, Norton, Evans, Mathias and Bitting. (6) The Rowlands first appear in Bucks county the beginning of the eighteenth century, when Thomas Rowland located 500 acres in Newtown township, extending from Newtown creek to Neshaminy, and probably included the ground occupied by the Newtown Presbyterian church.* The Griffiths of New Britain are descended from Benjamin Griffith, born in the county of Cardigan, Wales, October 16, 1688, came to America in 1710, baptised in 1711, settled at Montgomery in 1720, called to the ministry in 1722, and ordained in 1725. He was pastor of the church at that place to his death, in 1768. The wife of Benjamin Griffith was a Miles, and they had several sons and daughters. By close application he became a fine scholar, and among other accomplishments, he was a remarkable penman. He was pastor, lawyer, and physician to his congregation, and preached in Welsh or English, to suit his hearers. His son Benjamin became a Baptist minister, and settled near the Brandywine, in Chester county. [Griffith Griffith, son of Amos, born February 25, 1728, came to New Britain, 1767. He was county treasurer in the Revolution, and dying childless, about 1812, left his plantation to his nephew Amos, who became Dr. Amos Griffith. He died 1863, at the age of ninety-three. Abel M. Griffith, a former member of the Bucks county bar, and member of the Legislature, and the late John W. Griffith, New Britain, were son and nephew of Dr. Amos. Three of his sons were physicians. David Griffith, another member of this family who removed to Somerset, Ohio, when a young man, and thence to Indiana, died at Lafayette, Indiana, January 30, 1899, and would have been ninety-nine years old have he lived until the coming February 15. He was a Baptist like his ancestor; was probably born in New Britain, and a descendant of Benjamin Griffith.*] The Jameses, a numerous and influential family in New Britain, belong to this same Welsh stock (7). In 1711 John James and his sons Josiah, Thomas, William, Isaac, and probably Aaron, came from Pembrokeshire and settled in the eastern edge of Montgomery county. When the Montgomery Baptist church was organized, in 1719, with but ten members, John James, with his wife and three elder sons constituted one-half of the membership. In 1720 John and his sons, Thomas and William, purchased a thousand acres, part of the Hudson tract, in New Britain, on Pine run and North branch, and probably came into the township to reside about the same time. Josiah, Isaac and Aaron, whose wife was a member at Montgomery, remained on the other side of the county line, where Isaac became the owner of a thousand acres. John James probably died about 1726, as we hear no more of him after that date. In 1731 Thomas purchased one hundred and seventy-six additional acres of Society lands from Joseph Kirkbride. In 1738 William James bought two hundred and seventy-seven acres of John Kirkbride, north of Pine run and east of the Alms-house road, extending over Iron hill nearly to North branch. This tract was part of two thousand eight hundred and fifty acres which John Sotcher, of Falls, sold to Joseph Kirkbride in 1721. Kirkbride, who died in 1736, left his real estate to his son John by will. William James divided his property between his children before his death, John, probably the eldest son, getting the homestead where Thomas C. James lives. The two brothers were now large landowners. Soon after the first purchase William James built a house near where the dwelling of Thomas C. James stands. Thomas lived to be a very old man, and died about the time of the Revolution on the farm now owned by Adam Gaul, on the south side of Pine run. He probably had but two sons, Samuel and James. The former went to the western part of the state, and at the close of the Revolution the latter sold the farms, now owned by Eugene James and James E. Hill, to Peter Eaton and migrated to North Carol ina. The mother of Thomas C. James, of New Britain, was a Williams, likewise of a Welsh family, whose uncle, of that name, was educated for the ministry, and was settled at Providence, Rhode Island, where he died. His grandmother was a Maitland, member of a Scotch family of Wrightstown. Several of the Maitlands were in the French and Indian war, and six of the Jameses were in the Revolution. [The late*] John O. James, of Philadelphia, was the youngest son of Abel H. James, great-grandson of John James, the first, and his mother was Catharine, eldest daughter of Owen Owen, of Hilltown. Abel James, the father, was a farmer of Hilltown, but engaged in exporting produce from Philadelphia, died at Dover, Delaware, while there on a visit, in the fall of 1769. His son, Abel H. James, was born at Newtown, January 1st, 1770, and died in Hilltown in 1839. He lived for a time in Maryland and Virginia, but returned to Bucks county, and married Catharine Owen in 1803. Isaiah James, of New Britain, married Caroline, a younger sister of Abel H. James. All the Jameses of New Britain are descended from Thomas and William James, most of them from the latter. [The late*] Levi L. James, of Doylestown, was a descendant of Thomas, and Nathan C. of William. Previous to the Revolution the farm of Samuel Oakford belonged to John, the son of Thomas James, the elder. He left it at his death to his son Benjamin, who sold it to Doctor Hugh Meredith in 1789, on his removal to North Carolina. In 1792 it was bought by Moses Marshall, of Tinicum, son of him who made the Great Walk in 1737, who sold it in 1810, and removed to Buckingham. One of Marshall's sons married a daughter of Richard Walker, of Warrington (8). (7) The James family is a very old one in England, and appears in the Doomsday book as landowners. William James was probably born in 1692. (8) Robert James, at his death, April 13, 1898, in his 88th year, was the head of the family. He was a son of Levi and descendant of John James, the pioneer. He was a prominent citizen; elected to the Legislature, 1844, and served one term; jury commissioner 1867, and director of the poor 1880.* [The Boorums, New Britain, came into the township as early as 1761, and probably earlier. There were three of them, two bore the name of William, the other Aaron; what relation they were to each other, we do not know. The first William to come was an ensign in Captain Henry Darrah's company of militia, 1777, and dropped out of sight after 1780. The family name seems to have disappeared.*] We have already mentioned Hudson's tract, and how in 1698 it fell into the hands of five gentlemen from Long Island. In 1719 they sold it to Thomas Stephenson, when they found that it contained a thousand acres less than the grant called for. Stephenson died the same year, when his widow, Sarah, and Joseph Kirkbride, the executor, sold the property as follows: Two thousand eight hundred and fifty acres to [Joseph Kirkbride, of Falls, John Sotcher figuring as "straw man" to complete conveyance*]; one tho usand to John, Thomas and William James, and the remaining one hundred and fifty to Alexander Rees and Thomas Edwards. The farm of Abiah R. James is part of the Sotcher purchase. In some old deeds the "Kennedy tract" is recited, lying along the North branch between the Hudson tract and Hilltown, but we know nothing more of it. Of the Society lands which Joseph Kirkbride purchased in 1729, he sold two hundred and twenty-seven acres to Daniel Stephens in 1731, probably the time this family came into the township. Thomas Morgan, a Welshman, bought one hundred and fifty acres of Isaac James in 1731; in two years the tract in two parts fell into the possession of William Jones, and John Thomas, of which sixty-five and a half acres now belong to Abiah R. James, whose grandfather bought it of the Thomas family. He was the eldest son of Isaac and grandson of William, and was born in 1745. Remains of the old dwellings are still seen on this tract, probably the houses of the early Thomases, and Morgans. Thomas Morgan was probably the father of David Morgan, who, in 1760, owned the land on both sides of the Neshaminy where it is crossed by the Street road, when the crossing was known as Morgan's ford. The Riales (9) were among the earliest settlers in New Britain, but we have not the date of their arrival. The tombstone of John Riale, the progenitor of the family, is the oldest in the New Britain graveyard with a legible inscription, who died in 1748 at the age of sixty, which makes his time of birth 1688. He was the great-grandfather of the present David Riale, who married a daughter of David Evans, the Universalist. The name of Patrick Kelley, a Welsh settler, is found on the early deeds, but he could do no better than make his mark. The members of this family were noted for their intellectual activity. (9) The Riale family are descended from John Riale, born in England 1687, came to America 1725-30; bought 300 acres of Joseph Kirkbride April 24, 1730, in the southwest corner of new Britain, a portion of it being within the present limits of Doylestown Borough. He died, 1748, at the age of 61, leaving a widow and five children. [Moses Aaron came into New Britain in the period of which we write, but do not know the year. He became a farmer and was a Baptist. He married Hannah Kelley, the daughter of Patrick Kelley for his first wife, but the name of his second wife is not known. On some of the early deeds on which the name of Kelley is found he made his mark. Moses Aaron was the father of four children by his second wife, three daughters and one son, the youngest child, Samuel, born October 19, 1800. His parents dying when he was six years of age, he was placed under the care of an uncle and brought up on his farm. He first attended a day school in New Britain, where he was noted for his intellectual ability and learned rapidly. He had a clear, musical voice. At sixteen, young Aaron entered the Union Academy, Doylestown, of which the Rev. Uriah Du Bois had charge. Here he began the study of the classics, and made marked progress. It is related that the Academy boys looked on him with admiration, as he had been "through the arithmetic." At twenty, he connected himself with Gummere's Classical and Mathematical School at Burlington, N.J., as a student and assistant. Having completed his education he returned in the spring of 1821, to the Doylestown Academy to assist Mr. Du Bois. After a few months, he went back to Burlington to assist Mr. Gummere, remaining until 1824. In 1828, he was ordained to the ministry, and called to the charge of the New Britain Baptist church, but about 1831, connected himself with the Doylestown Academy, the Rev. Robert P. Du Bois being co-proprietor. He subsequently became principal of the Gummere's School and pastor of the Burlington Baptist church. In 1841, he was called to the Norristown Baptist church, which he resigned, 1844, and founded the "Freemount Seminary," which became a famous school, having 120 boarders, and sixty day scholars, at a time. Here many prominent men received their education. In 1859 Mr. Aaron accepted a call to the Mount Holly Baptist church, and, shortly after, opened a school, remaining there to his death, April 11, 1865. In the graveyard there his admiring friends erected a monument to his memory.*] [The Rev. Samuel Aaron was twice married; his first wife being Amelia, daughter of the Rev. Uriah Du Bois, of Doylestown, who dying, 1830, he married, 1833, Eliza G. daughter of Samuel Currie, New Britain. Mr. Aaron was an able and eloquent man and probably the finest speaker ever born in the county. He was equally eloquent in the pulpit and on the rostrum, his sweet musical voice charming all listeners. He was a great champion of temperance and a strong advocate of the Anti-Slavery cause. He was a passionate man, and probably wrecked his fortunes on this rock. The author was his pupil at Doylestown and Burlington, and remembers him very distinctly. Samuel Aaron was born in the house where Adam Gaul lived, a mile north of New Britain village.*] (10) (10) The Aaron family account is from the 1905 edition. The first movement to organize the township was in the summer of 1723. The 14th of June "the inhabitants of Bucks county, situated and settled upon branches of the Neshaminy, adjacent to Montgomery, in the county of Philadelphia," petitioned "the Honorable Beanch" to lay off and erect a certain tract of country into a township. The petitioners suggested that the new township should be called "Britain," but some years before this the settlers had named all that region of country "New Britain," after the island from which they had immigrated. The petitioners ask that the prayer of "ye inhabitants settled on peckquisi hills" to be made into a township may be "duly considered." The petition is endorsed "petition from Forks of Neshaminy," and the following names were signed to it: David Evans, David Williams, Thomas Edwards, Daniel Hide, Thomas David, Samuel Davies, David John, John Humphreys, Rees Lewis, William James, David James, Griffith Evans (11), John James, John Evans, Benjamin Griffith, John David, John Edwards, Simon Butler, Thomas Edwards, Simon Mathew, Thomas Rees, and Josiah James. The boundary cannot be correctly made out from the original record, but we know that it was a good deal larger than now, and that its southwest line reached to the county line. Although we have not any record to confirm it, we believe the township was laid out and organized in accordance with the prayer of the petitioners, and probably in the fall of that year, and with the name it now bears, yet it was called "North Britain" as late as 1735. (11) Griffith Evans was in New Britain prior to 1720, his farm being of the Fitzwater tract. [The progenitor of the Hines family, this county and State, was Mathew Hines, Scotch-Irish Presbyterian who settled at Whitemarsh, then Philadelphia, now Montgomery county, about 1720. His wife dying he married Ann Simpson, a widow, and by her had one son named Mathew after his father. He came into New Britain, 1759, and 1773, James Delaney, a non-resident, conveyed to Mathew, William and Samuel Hines, and William Simpson, their half brother, 500 acres. William Hines was active in the Revolution. He was ensign in Colonel Joseph Hart's battalion organized July 1776, and served with it in the Amboy Expedition that summer and fall, and was discharged toward the end of December. It is also claimed that William Hines commanded a militia regiment at one time. He died, 1830, at the age of eighty and both himself and wife were buried at Neshaminy graveyard. Dr. A. J. Hines, Doylestown, was a grandson of the William Hines, of whom we speak, and son of William, Jr.*] Germans began coming into New Britain quite early, although they cannot be classed as original settlers. There was a number of families there previous to the Revolution not less than ten of which were land-owners, some of them owning land as early as 1744. Among the names we notice those of Souder, Godshalk, a Mennonite, who owned the first riding-chair in the neighborhood, Rephert, Lapp, Rosenberger (12), and Haldeman, most of whom were in the township previous to 1776. The Haldemans, who settled there near the close of the last century, are descended from one of two brothers who immigrated from Switzerland many years before. One, or both of the brothers settled in Salford township, Montgomery county, whence John came into Bucks county in 1762 (13). He bought two hundred and seventy acres of Benjamin Austin, in Milford township, on which he settled, and in 1786 he bought one hundred and forty-three acres of Samuel Nixon, of Richland. In 1790 John Haldeman, probably one of the brothers who settled in Salford, and great-grandfather of the present John R. Haldeman, came into New Britain and settled on two hundred and twenty-three acres on the county line which he bought of William Roberts, part of three hundred and twenty acres that Joseph Kirkbride had granted to Lewis Roberts, of Abington (14). Five years before, Jacob Haldeman, no doubt member of the same family, bought thirty acres in New Britain of Jacob Geil. He was probably a son of John the first, and the advance-guard in the immigration southward. John Brunner, a blacksmith of Saucon, in Lehigh county, came to New Britain, and settled at Castle valley about 1790, and the late Thomas Brunner, was a descendant. The Brinkers came from Saucon about the same time, and the Garners (15) came from Towamencin, or Worcester, Montgomery county, to Warrington about the close of the last century. The Barndts came from near Tylersport, Montgomery county three-fourth of a century ago, and gave the first name to Whitehallville, now Chalfont. The Detweilers, numerous in New Britain and Bedminster, sprung from ancestors who immigrated from Germany about the middle of the last century and settled in Horsham and Whitpain. The Shutt family removed down from one of the upper townships of Montgomery about three-quarters of a century ago, and the Kepharts and Meyers came into the township about the same time. The Leidys are said to have descended from one of three brothers who immigrated from Germany, one settled in Montgomery county, a second in Lehigh, and a third in Bucks. The Godshalks are old residents, and were members of the Montgomery Baptist church as long ago as 1770. (12) He owned property that now belongs to Abraham Swartley. (13) Nicholas Haldeman, in Salford township, Montgomery county, 1734, is said to have crossed the ocean prior to 1728, and John probably his son, came into Bucks from Lower Salford when a young man.* (14) Owen Roberts, a settler in New Britain, but of a different family, was a tory in the Revolution, joined the British, 1778, was charged with treason and his real estate confiscated, and 60 acres sold at the court-house, Newtown, 1779. It was bought by Henry Darrah.* (15) The earliest trace we have of the Garners in Bucks county was 1776 when John Garner was enrolled with non-Associators. In 1778 his name is on the roll of Captain Darrah's militia company. Was a taxable, 1799.* [The Reese family was in New Britain as early as 1722, when Joseph Kirkbride sold Thomas Reese 250 acres, later sixty-five acres, making 315 in all. Little is known of the family. Thomas was the son and successor of the father. In 1773 David Reese sold the remainder of his tract to Capt. Henry Darrah, New Britain, and, 1779, was taxed for 237 acres. He died, 1782, leaving a widow and two minor children. He was the great- grandfather of Rev. D. K. Turner's wife. In 1794, James, son of Capt. Henry Darrah, sold the New Britain farm and moved down into Warminster, where he spent the rest of his life. The name of Reese is no longer carried on our records. The Flacks were among the early settlers. James, born in Ireland, 1715, died in Buckingham, 1809, at the age of ninety-four, and was buried at Neshaminy graveyard. Robert Flack of New Britain, who served in Captain Darrah's Company, in the Revolution, died, 1814, at the age of seventy-one. One of the Harts, of Warminster, married a Miss Reese. The Weirs, Scotch- Irish Presbyterians, thought to have come into the Province early, made their appearance in new Britain, 1760, probably coming from Warrington. Samuel Weir was a trustee of Neshaminy church 1754, and four Weirs were buried at Neshaminy, respectively, James, John, Mary and James, '34, '40, '51 and '54, at the ages of seventy- eight, eighty-seven, eighty-seven and sixty-seven. In 1765, William Allen conveyed a tract of 325 acres to James Weir, who was a sergeant in Darrah's company, 1777. "Weir's Corner," at the junction of the Whitehall pike and the State road, took its name from the family. The Weirs and McKinstrys intermarried. The above deaths are from Mr. Turner's "Neshaminy Church," 1876, but from another source, we believe Edward Mathews, we have other data of deaths in the Weir family: John, 1840, aged eighty-seven and Samuel, 1811, at eighty, probably sons of the immigrant. Rebecca Weir, daughter of Samuel, was the grandmother of General Grant. James Weir, who died, 1834, at the age of seventy- eight, was a son of John. He was born, 1756.*] The Bachmans of New Britain are descended from a German immigrant, great- grandfather of Jacob Bachman, whose name and time of arrival are not known. He probably settled in this county, and possibly in Hilltown, where his grandson, John, the father of Jacob, was born about 1785. John had two children, Jacob and Mary. The latter is dead, but Jacob lives at Line Lexington, on the New Britain side of the line. Charles Eckert, the ancestor of the Eckert family, was born in 1742, and came to America in 1761, at the age of nineteen. He was sold for three years, to pay his passage, to a man who lived at Oley, Berks county, who taught him the blacksmith trade. Eckert was smart and industrious, saved money, and married his employer's daughter. He was a captain in the American army in the Revolution. In 1797 he walked down from Berks county, and bought near three hundred acres in New Britain of "Quaker" Thomas Jones, north of Newville, the greater part of which Jones had bought of Abel James in 1768. New Britain was essentially a Welsh settlement, and for many years that race largely predominated in the population, and is yet strong in numbers and influence. Her early settlers were likewise Baptists, which explains the preponderance of that denomination in the township at the present day. The Reverends William Thomas and Benjamin Griffith, the former pastor at Hilltown and the latter at Montgomery, across the county line, extended their labors among the New Britain settlements and to the region northwest of Hilltown, beyond the Tohickon, and were the only ministers of the gospel throughout all that section for several years. The Welsh Baptists connected themselves with the Montgomery church, and formed part of that congregation until the church at New Britain was constituted, about 1740. This church, in part, owes its origin to a quarrel between the Baptists se ttled at New Britain and Montgomery about the "son-ship of Christ." We are told that the first person buried in the Baptist graveyard was a woman, carried from a house that stood near the intersection of the railroad with the road leading to Landisville, and near the village of New Britain. At one time the house belonged to a man named Gray, and the lowland adjoining has always been known as Gray's meadow. This lot, of fourteen acres, was reserved by David Stephens when he sold the surrounding property to John Mathew, in 1760, and was not conveyed to the latter until 1764. The site of the house is pointed out by a depression in the ground, but when and by whom built is a mystery. This burial probably took place about 1740. (See illustration of New Britain Baptist Church) [The church building, sixty-five by forty-six, with a seating capacity of 600, was remodeled, refurnished and otherwise much improved in appearance, inside and out, 1882. In 1885 a chapel, fifty-six by thirty-three, with a seating capacity of 300, was erected at the cost of $7,000. It is divided into seven compartments, including a library, infant classroom, and two dining rooms, for church festivals, in the basement. The membership is over 300 and mainly represents the descendants of the Welsh settlers. For the history of New Britain church see the chapter on "Historic Churches."*] The early settlement of German Mennonites in New Britain led to the organization of a church of this denomination. In 1752 a lot of about one acre was bought of James McColister in the north-west corner of the township, near the Hilltown line, on which a log meeting-house was erected. The lot was afterward enlarged to between three and four acres. The first deed was made in trust to one Roar and Christian Swartz, of New Britain, and Henry Shooter and John Rosenberger, of Hatfield. When the log house was found too small to accommodate the growing congregation, it was torn down and a stone one erected in its place. This was enlarged to double the capacity in 1808, and in 1868 this house was taken down and a new stone church, forty-five by sixty feet, built on the site. This organization is sometimes called the Line Lexington church, and at others the Perkasie church. [Squire Boone, father of Daniel Boone, the famous hunter and pioneer, of the southwest, was an early settler in New Britain.*] [There has been some contention over the birthplace of Daniel Boone, not a few crediting it to this county, more than one author locating it on the west bank of the Delaware, below Bristol. Whatever else may be said in its favor, the evidence does not sustain this latter conclusion. The authorities substantially agree that the Boones were English Friends from near Exeter, Devonshire, and settled in that part of Philadelphia county, now included in Montgomery. They landed in Philadelphia. George Boone, Jr., the first to come, 1713, settled within the bounds of Abington Meeting, producing a certificate from Bradninch Meeting, 8th mo. 26, October, 1713. He subsequently became clerk of the Meeting, and entered on its records, the date of his marriage, 5th mo. 26, July, 1713, to Deborah, daughter of William Howell, which probably took place in England, as the date of this marriage antedates his membership by three months. He was followed, 1717, by George Boone, Sr., his father, accompanied by his wife and several children. They united themselves with the Gwynedd Meeting. The records of this Meeting have the following entry, under date of 10th mo., 31st, December, 1717: "George Boone, Sr., produced a certificate of his good life and conversation from the Monthly Meeting at Callumpton, in Great Britain, which was read and well received." Of the children of George Boone, Sr., the names of four sons and one daughter appear on the Gwynedd records, including that of Squire Boone, father of Daniel, all probably born in England. Squire Boone became of some local note as will be seen from the following extract taken from the "Minutes of the Board of Property." "At the Proprietaries x ber 3 d. 1734." "Ordered that J. Steel write to Squire Boone for him to seize the walnut timber cut down by some person, unknown on the island which is about to be surveyed to B. Fairman and Peter Rambo, lying on Schuylkill for twenty-one years." "The timber to remain the property of Proprietaries."*] [Archivist's note: See Boone files in Berks county in these archives for additional information on the birthplace of Daniel Boone. Evidence is available showing that he was born in Olney township, then part of Philadelphia, now Berks county.] [Squire Boone, son of George Boone, Sr., was married to Sarah Morgan, daughter of Edward Morgan, 7th mo. 23, September, 1720, on records of Gwynedd Meeting, the certificate reciting that Squire Boone is a "son of George Boone, of Philadelphia County," and among the witnesses, were George Boone, George Boone, Jr., and James Boone. Where Squire Boone and wife first settled is not known, but they were living in New Britain township a few years later. Such location would be natural. The Morgans were early settlers in the township, and gave the name to "Morgan's Ford," on the Neshaminy, where the Street road crosses that stream, the family owning land on both sides of it. As the young wife was a Morgan, the husband would be inclined to make their home among her relatives. We learn from the Recorder's Office, Doylestown, that on the 3d of December, 1728, "Squire Boone, of New Britain, in the said county of Bucks, weaver," was party of the third part" to a tripartite deed, whereby "Thomas Shute, of the city of Philadelphia, in the Province of Pennsylvania, Yeoman, and Elizabeth, his wife, of the first part, and Hierominus Hus, of Perkioming, in the county of Bucks, in the Province of the second part, conveyed to the said Squire Boone a tract of 147 acres in said township, the line beginning at a "corner of the reputed land of Abel Morgan." Boone was living in New Britain before he took this conveyance as we learn from the deed. About this time he is known to have been a petitioner for a road in New Britain, and the author has examined his signature, "Squire Boone," in plain letters.*] [Squire and Sarah Boone were the parents of nine children, born between 1724 and 1740, but the place of birth of the whole of them is not definitely known: Sarah, born 4, 7, 1724 Israel, 3, 9, 1726 Samuel, 3, 20, 1728 Jonathan, 10, 6, 1730 Elizabeth, 12, 1, 1732 Daniel, 8, 22, 1734 Mary, 9, 3, 1736 George, 11, 2, 1739 Edward, 9, 9, 1740. They are recorded as they stand here, on the Quarterly Meeting records of Oley.*] [Thus we have given a brief minute of the Boone family from its arrival in this county, 1713-77; the marriage of Squire Boone, 1720; his taking a conveyance of real estate in New Britain and living there, 1728. The authorities agree that Squire Boone purchased a tract of 240 acres in Exeter township, November 30, 1730, then in Lancaster county, now in Berks, near the present Reading, and to it the whole family removed, but there is no evidence as to the time, including George Boone, Sr., and wife. No one knows when Squire Boone and his family left New Britain, nor at what time he settled on his new purchase. George Boone, Sr., died there, February 2, 1740, at seventy- eight and his wife in May, at seventy-two. The fact that the names and births of his children are recorded on the Meeting records of Oley has no significance beyond that fact itself. With these facts, and we know of nothing more pertinent, unless some stronger testimony be offered, the place of Danial Boone's birth is, and will remain, an open question. If not born in Bucks, he was not born in Berks, for that county, formed from Philadelphia, Bucks and Lancaster was not organized until after Squire Boone and his family had removed to North Carolina, 1750. He may have been born on territory that was subsequently included in the new county of Berks (16).*] (16) Nearly all, if not all, of Daniel Boone's biographers have fixed his birth place, and the residence of his family, on the west bank of the Delaware below Bristol, Bucks county, but there is no evidence to sustain it. There was a family of Boons in Bristol township at an early day but they were not of the lineage of Daniel. They were Swedes. Solomon Boon, with his family, was settled near Bristol prior to 1745 and owned a farm. Some time that year he petitioned the court for a road from his place dire ct to the village. We have examined the petition, and the name, in a legible hand, is spelled "Boon." His will was executed, 1743, Dec. 6, and he had sons Ralph, Joseph and Solomon, and a daughter Elizabeth. Daniel Boone is said to have died at Charette village, Mo., September 26, 1822, in the 90th year of his age.*] (See illustration of Daniel Boone) [The Wigtons, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, probably settled in New Britain, 1735- 40, the first of the name being Samuel "Whigdon," or "Wigton," who died intestate, 1741. In 1744 his brother John bought 212 acres in the township, of John Kirkbride, and subsequently sixty-three acres of Thomas and Catharine Morris, and 1791, divided his real estate between his surviving sons, Samuel and William. John Wigton died March 7, 1801, aged 100 and was buried at Deep Run. Captain James Wigton, son of John, was killed in the battle of Wyoming, July 3, 1778, and all his family massacred, except a young daughter, Isabel, whom Samuel went after and fetched to Bucks county on horseback. The same Samuel was a lieutenant in the 4th battalion, Bucks county militia, 1777-8, and served at Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Christopher and Jean Hughes, and lived on his farm on Iron Hill, in a brick house, the first in the neighborhood. He died October 11, 1812, aged seventy-five. His children were Samuel, an early iron master of Western Pennsylvania, died, 1828, and succeeded by his brother, Christopher (17), who married Margaret Hines. He commanded a company of riflemen in the war of 1812-15 with England, and was succeeded in business by his sons Samuel and Richard B.; Jane Wigton, daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth, married Daniel Morgan, Montgomery county, 1802, and was the mother of seven children, born between 1803 and 1818, five growing to maturity; Isabel Wigton married John Kennedy, and their descendants, the Kennedy, Fentons, Blakes, Manns and Rabbs are living in Montgomery county; Margaret Wigton, married Thomas H. Logan, merchant, Philadelphia, whose only son was a member of the city bar; Anne Wigton married John Sebring Brown, Alexandria, Va., a descendant of the Browns, of Plumstead, whose oldest male descendant is F. Wigton Brown, Philadelphia; Richard Benson Wigton, member Pennsylvania Legislature, 1859, and leading iron and coal operator; Mary A. Wigton, married Joseph Dysart, Altoona; Eleanor Wigton married William Q. Wallace, and one of their daughters was the wife of Gen. Robert A. McCoy, 11th Pennsylvania Reserves.*] (17) He lived some years in Chester county, and is mentioned in Futhey & Cope's history, and Africa's History of Blair County.* [The Wigton descendants, when the Civil war broke out, displayed the patriotism their ancestors exhibited in the Revolution. Several entered the military service. William Wigton Wallace, managing editor of The Presbyterian, Philadelphia, was captain in the 125th Pa. John Melville Wigton, director and medical inspector, was in charge of hospital on Lookout Mountain, and John J. Wigton served a three years' enlistment in the 104th Pa. At the battle of Antietam, Captain Wallace of the Color Company, of his regiment, 125th Pa., seized the flag after five bearers had been killed. William Wigton was the immediate ancestor of all the Wigtons living in Bucks county during the past three quarters of a century. The late Charles Wigton, Doylestown, was his grandson, the son of James. Charles Wigton spent his life here and was active in business and politics. The town is indebted to him for some desirable improvements. Samuel Wigton, whose wife was Elizabeth, died 1741, the wife, 1757. His son was Lieut. John Wigton, 3d Regular. Penna. Line, member of Pennsylvania Society of Cincinnati, tutor at the University of Pennsylvania, 1775-85; and himself, wife and two daughters died within three weeks, of yellow fever at Philadelphia, and were buried in the churchyard at Fourth and Pine. He was married twice, one wife being Nancy Darrah. The family has produced some distinguished men. Among them diplomatic representatives at Washington, of the Republic of Texas; another, Robert Underwood Johnson, Cross of the French Legion of Honor, Knight of the Crown or Italy, and Assistant Editor, Century Magazine. His brother, Henry Underwood Johnson, was a member of Congress from Indiana (18).*] (18) The engraving that accompanies the sketch of the Wigton family was the home of Samuel Wigton on Iron Hill, New Britain, and is supposed to have been built about 1791, soon after coming into possession of the land. The original drawing was made by Elizabeth Wigton, daughter of Samuel, 1807, and remained in her possession until her death, 1875. The copy, from which the engraving was made, was drawn by F. Wigton Brown.* (See illustration of Iron Hill, Residence of Lieut. Sam'l Wigton, 1807) [The Atherholts, a numerous family in Eastern Pennsylvania, settled in Bucks county, 1753, Christian, the immigrant, sailing from Hamburg and landing at Philadelphia. He was a native of Hanover, Germany. In religion he was probably a Mennonite or joined them soon after his arrival. He was a young married man with wife and children. Their residence, the first eighteen years, is not definitely known, but probably in New Britain or Hilltown. In 1771 Christian Atherholt bought 151 acres in the western corner of New Britain, of Christian Krawll, a portion of the village of Line Lexington being built on the tract. It was owned in more recent years by the Ruth and Clymer families. He made his will 1806 and died 1812, leaving five children: Frederick, deceased; Christian, Wilhelmina, Lavina and Catharine. To Christian, the oldest son living, was given the homestead, while to the daughters, including Frederick's widow and her eleven children, were bequeathed money.*] [Frederick Atherholt, eldest son of the immigrant, is supposed to have been born between 1740 and 1748, and married Esther Bibighouse about 1768. He was a tanner by trade and died suddenly, October, 1789, just in his prime. He had purchased a farm of forty acres, the previous March, in Bedminster and tradition says he was found dead in his bed, in the morning, at Line Lexington, whither he had gone to take charge of a tannery, on the premises now owned by Oliver Morris, at the junction of the County Line and the Bethlehem pike. He left eleven children, born between 1769 and 1787: Daniel, Mary, Abraham, Christian, Frederick, David, Joseph, Esther, Samuel and Gabriel. The second Christian Atherholt remained in possession until his death, 1838, his will being executed April 21st. He married Margaret King, and they had a family of ten children: Catharine, wife of John Ruth; Christian; Mary, wife of Levi Swartly; Elizabeth, wife of Daniel Ruth; Anna, wife of Samuel Detweiler; Sarah, wife of John Lightcap, Rebecca, wife of Peter Loux, father of the late John A. Loux, justice of the peace, and prominent man in Bedminster; Samuel, who married Rebecca Fry, and John. The executors sold the real estate that had been in the family sixty-eight years.*] [The Atherholts have a record of patriotism from the Revolution to the Civil war. Christian was a member of Capt. Henry Darrah's Company of Associators, 1776-7; Frederick, his elder brother, was a member of Captain Charles McHenry's Company, and for which he recruited from March 11 to May 20, 1778; in the Civil war, Wilson D. Atherholt, a native of Haycock, Bucks county, served in the 5th Wisconsin, and lost his life in the Campaign on the Peninsula; David Atherholt, of Bucks county, was a soldier in the Union army, and others of the name saw service in the same, from Luzerne and Mercer counties and Philadelphia. The descendants of the immigrant of 1753, are found in almost every walk in life, one Thomas C. Atherholt, the fifth in descent from Frederick, and a native of Bucks, is a wholesale dealer in china, glass, and queensware, Philadelphia. He was a participant in the exciting scenes in Kansas almost half a century ago.*] [Among the interesting homesteads in New Britain, is that recently in the tenure of the Donaldson family, and owned by then for 130 years, situated on the northwest side of what is known as the Doylestown road where it crosses the county line. The house is a large stone structure, surrounded by a farm of 167 acres with a lasting spring of water nearby, and was originally part of the James Steel tract bought 1718. For the next fifty years the 212 acres which Abel Morgan, a Baptist minister, bought of the Steel tract, was held by David Evans, 1722 to 1738, when it was sold to Jonathan Drake; then to Thomas Drake, 1756, and to Joseph Endicot, 1770. The next purchaser was Edward Milnor, an ancestor of the Donaldsons on the maternal side. A part of the present stone structure was built when Milnor bought the property, and the remainder subsequently. Milnor was a delegate to the Provincial Convention, 1775, and died 1803. In the list of taxables in New Britain, 1779, Edward Milnor was taxed for 100 acres and four negro slaves. In 1777, Sarah Milnor, daughter of Edward Milnor, married John Donaldson, son of Hugh. The Donaldsons were Scotch-Irish. Hugh, the immigrant, born, 1721, coming to Philadelphia about 1750, engaged in the manufacture of sea biscuit, and married Mary Wormly at the age of twenty-one. He was an ardent friend of the Colonies in the Revolution, and one of the signers of the Non Importation Act, 1765; dying, 1772, while on a visit to Ireland. John Donaldson was a young man when the Revolution broke out, and entering the cavalry served at Trenton, Brandywine, Germantown and elsewhere. In 1794 he served in the force that quelled the Whiskey Insurrection in western Pennsylvania, and in civil life filled the office of Warden of the Port of Philadelphia. He was born at Philadelphia, 1754, and died there 1831, at seventy-seven, and only lived transiently on the New Britain farm. John Donaldson had five sons and four daughters, the former bearing the names of Edward, John, Hugh, George and Richard. The latter, born 1787, and died 1872 at eighty-five, and inherited the farm and married Harriet Curry, New Britain. He was known as Captain Donaldson, having followed the sea many years and gained that title.*] [Near the close of the eighteenth century a new settler moved across the Montgomery line into New Britain, and was one of the most prominent men in the township for thirty years. This was Jacob Reed, son of Philip and Feronica Reed, immigrants from Mannheim, in the Palatinate, Germany, and landed at Philadelphia, October 15, 1727. They settled in Marlborough township, then in Philadelphia county, a few miles from Bucks border, where the son was born June 28, 1730. He was brought up on his father's farm, received a good education for the time and in 1755 married Magdalena Leidy, youngest daughter of Jacob Leidy, Franconia township. They settled in West Hatfield adjoining the farm of the brother, Jacob Leidy, Jr. *] [At the breaking out of the Revolution, Jacob Reed took an active part in the cause of the Colonies, soon becoming one of the most conspicuous young men in that section. He served in the militia during the war, reaching the rank of lieutenant-colonel. His command was made up of the troops of Upper and Lower Salford, Towamencin, Hatfield, Perkiomen and Skippack, and took the field on several occasions. He is said to have been present at Trenton, and participated in the campaign of 1777 in Pennsylvania, his knowledge of the field of operations making his services more valuable. The activity of Colonel Reed made him a mark for the ill will of the tories. On one occasion when visiting his family, he was shot in the leg and captured, tied to a tree and tarred and feathered, and his friends rescued him while the enemy was digging the grave to bury him. These parties were compelled to flee the country and their property was subsequently confiscated. One day, while riding along the public road, he was fired at from a fence corner by a Hessian, and while the British held Philadelphia, he was captured by a raiding party, and his life saved by an officer's wife interceding for him.*] [In 1783, at the close of the war, Colonel Reed purchased ninety acres, in New Britain, of John Garner, on the county line a mile west of Colmar, the Neshaminy running through it. He removed to this farm, 1793, on selling his Hatfield tract, and living there until his death, November 2, 1820. He was buried in Leidy's graveyard, Franconia township. His death was much regretted. He was active in all good work and filled a number of public trusts. Colonel Reed's oldest son, Philip, married Elizabeth Solliday, only daughter of Frederick Solliday, Bedminster, and to him was deeded a portion of the New Britain plantation. On it he subsequently erected a saw and grist mill, among the earliest in the township, a short distance below the covered bridge that spans the Neshaminy on the county line. The mills have long since disappeared.*] Mennonites were almost the first religious sect on the banks of the Delaware. About 1662 some of the followers of Menno Simon came from Holland and settled at Whorekill, where the Dutch made them a grant free from all impost and taxation for twenty years. When the Delaware fell into the hands of the English, two years afterward, these unoffending people were severe sufferers. The conquerors robbed them of their goods, and many of them were sold as slaves to Virginia. They were among the early German immigrants to the banks of the Schuylkill. They purchased a lot at Germantown in 1703, and five years afterward erected thereon a frame meeting-house. The church was organized May 23d, 1708, and they worshiped in the old building until 1770, when the frame was replaced by a substantial stone structure, whose centennial was celebrated in 1870. This modest frame was the parent church of this denomination in America. John Sensen is said to have been the first Mennonite who came to Philadelphia and Germantown. Just when this sect came into Bucks county is not known, but they were among the earliest German immigrants who penetrated the wilderness of the upper townships in the first thirty years of the last century, and now constitute a considerable portion of our rural German population. They are almost universally farmers, and in point of morals, integrity and industry, are second to no class of the inhabitants of our county. They are plain in dress, frugal in living, and poverty among them is almost unknown, leading a simple life, and mingle but little with the great outside world. They agree with the Friends in their opposition to war. The Mennonites of Bucks county being without a written history, we find it difficult to trace their churches and congregations. They have churches in New Britain, Rockhill, Milford, Springfield, Bedminster, Doylestown, and probably elsewhere. New Britain was one of the first townships they settled in, and the Line Lexington congregation is one of the oldest in the county. The Reverend John Geil, son of Jacob Geil who immigrated from Alsace, or a neighboring province on the Rhine, at the age of eight years and settled in Plumstead, was one of their ablest ministers. Jacob [sic... should be John], was born there in April, 1778. The father, who married a sister of Valentine Clymer, of New Britain, removed to Chester county, and soon afterward to Virginia. Jacob (sic) was apprenticed to learn the tanning-trade, but liking neither the trade nor the master, he ran away and returned to Bucks county in his eighteenth or twentieth year. He married Elizabeth Fretz, of New Jersey, April 22d 1802, and had nine children, of whom Samuel Geil, of Doylestown, is one. He probably joined the Doylestown church, and in 1810 or 1811 he was called to the ministry, at Line Lexington, where he preached until 1852. His wife died November 5th, 1849, in her sixty-ninth year, and he the 6th of January, 1866, in his eighty-eighth year, in Plumstead township, the place of his birth. He was a man of strong mind, extensive reading, and had a remarkably retentive memory. John Holdsman*, a member in the church for thirty-eight years, and probably one of the pastors at Line Lexington, died in New Britain February 9th, 1815, aged seventy-eight years. Among other ministers at this church in the past sixty years, can be mentioned Hunsberger, Isaac Hunsicker, Isaac Oberholtzer, George Landis, Henry Moyer, and Abraham Moyer. Henry Hunsberger became a bishop and presided over the three churches of Perkasie, Deep Run and Doylestown, administering the ordinance of baptism and the Lord's Supper. The oldest tombstone in the burial-ground attached to this church was erected to the memory of Abigail Shive, who died in 1783. [Captain John Robbarts, a later settler in New Britain, and long a resident in the township, was an Englishman by birth. There is some romance as well as mystery, connected with his life, which the public knew not of while he lived among them. It was supposed that Robbarts was not his true name, that he followed the sea from his boyhood, had been an officer of the English Navy, and deserted it for our service. At what time he came to this country is not known with any degree of certainty, but probably prior to the war of 1812-15 with England, for, in 1813, he was commanding the private armed ship "Jacob Jones," of sixteen guns and seventy-four men, sailing out of Boston, and a number of valuable prizes fell into his hands. We next hear of him in command of one of Stephen Girard's merchant ships, where he won the reputation of a trusty sea captain, but, how long we do not know. On January 11, 1820, John Brunner, Administrator of John Moyer, of New Britain, deceased, conveyed to John Robbarts, of Philadelphia, a messuage and tract of moderate size, in that township, on which he probably shortly settled and where he died. He soon became active and prominent in the affairs of his neighborhood. At this period the volunteer militia were nearly at their height in the county, and in them he took an interest. It was mainly through his efforts that the Union Troop, one of the most famous cavalry companies in the state, was recruited and organized. The first meeting, held for the purpose, was on the evening of July 20, 1822, at the Indian Queen tavern, Doylestown, later the "Ross Mansion," and Robbarts was elected captain. He resigned in 1831, and was succeeded by George H. Pawling who was elected May 7, 1832. Captain Robbarts' residence was known as the "Prospect Hill Farm," where he died on December 20, 1844, leaving a widow, Christian, but no children. She released the right to administer on the estate to Samuel Darrah, and Stephen Brock and Kirk J. Price, of Doylestown, appraised the personal property at $4,002.85. The settlement of the estate showed $5,083.08 personalty and $7,380.80 arising from the sale of real estate. The balance in the hands of the administrator after the payment of debts was invested in state securities for the benefit of the widow.*] The only congregation of Universalists ever in the county was in New Britain. The pastor, David Evans, was an eccentric character and a good classical scholar, but of a quarrelsome and contentious disposition, who lived on Pine run. He was a member at New Britain many years, but changing his views tried to divide the congregation and take part of it with him. He was prohibited preaching in the church and then dismissed, when he organized a congregation about 1785, now ninety-one years ago. On the 30th of January, 1790, the members, all told, were David Evans, Daniel Evans, Joseph Barton, Thomas Morris, Isaac Thomas, Daniel Thomas, John Riale, Gilbert Belcher, Isaac Morris and James Evans, who signed a document approving the proposal for a Universalist convention in the following May. In 1793 they report that they have been able to maintain weekly meetings most of the year. The report for 1802 says: "We have a little meeting-house, built in a convenient place, by the side of a public road, and finished in November last, (1801.) Since then we have had meetings for religious worship therein every first day of the week. But a few only incline to meet statedly." The church sent delegates to the conventions in Philadelphia from 1790 to 1809, when the last was held. Thomas Morris was clerk during this period. The house they met in was built on Mr. Evans's own farm, lately in the possession of his grandson, J. Judson Evans, on the road leading to New Britain, half a mile west of Sandy Ridge school-house in Doylestown township. It was afterward used for a schoolhouse, but has long since been torn down. Mr. Evans preached for the congregation to his death, in 1824, in his eighty-sixth year, when the little flock scattered. He was at the head of Universalism in his day, and was present at every convention from 1790 to 1824. He was buried in the Mennonite graveyard above Doylestown. He did a large amount of public neighborhood business, and attended to considerable in the courts before the seat of justice was removed to Doylestown. He was noted for his penmanship. Two of his pamphlets on religious subjects were printed at Doylestown: one a sermon on "Absolute Predestination," preached at the opening of the Universalist convention at Philadelphia, May 17th, 1806, the other, a lecture delivered in the Universalist church, Philadelphia, in June, 1809, entitled, "Remarks on the Baptist Association Letter." On the title-page of the latter he is styled: "Minister of the Universalian church, at New Britain." At his death his manuscripts were scattered and lost. The record of the opening of original roads in New Britain is brief, but none of them are as old as the township. In 1730 the inhabitants petitioned for a road from the county line via Whitehallville, New Britain and Doylestown to Buckingham meeting. It was probably not granted at that time, but shortly afterward. It followed substantially the track of the present road between the same points which meet the York road at Centreville. It was asked for "as an outlet from the Jerseys to North Wales and the Schuylkill," and soon became a thoroughfare of travel. The Poor house road was laid out and opened about 1745, by the "New meeting-house" to the north-east line road in Warwick. One of the earliest roads in the township is that for many years called the Butler road, and I believe is still so called by some, because Simon Butler had it opened. It starts from the store-house west of the bridge at Whitehallville, and runs to Louisville, a hamlet on the Bethlehem road, and was turnpiked a few years ago. It crosses the county line at Pleasantville, and joins the Bethlehem road at what was Rutter's, now Foust's tanyard, and was opened to give the New Britain settlers an outlet to Philadelphia. There is a tradition that the great Indian chief, Tamany, died and was buried near a spring at the foot of Prospect hill, three and one-half miles west of Doylestown. It is handed down in the Shewell family that a great chief, whoever he was, was taken sick while going to attend a treaty, and was left in charge of his daughter in a wigwam; that, chagrined at being left behind, he took his own life, and was buried near the spring, at the foot of a big poplar, by Walter, grandfather of Nathaniel Shewell. The most accurate computation of time fixes the date about 1749, but there is no evidence that the chieftain alluded to was Tamany (19). (19) At a meeting of the Bucks County Historical Society, measures were taken to mark the grave spoken of, the committee believing the facts warrant the assumption that a great chief was buried near the spring; while no one vouches it was Tamany, but his death and burial have always been connected with it by tradition. Mr. Buck holds that Tamany could not have been buried at New Britain.* This celebrated Indian first appears in history in his treaty of June 23d, 1683, with William Penn, by which he granted him all the lands "lying between Pennapecka and Nessaninechs creek, and all along Nessaninechs creek," in consideration of as much wampum and goods as Penn might please to give him. Tamany, or Tamanend, appears in other treaties for lands in this county. But little is known of him. Gabriel Thomas, in his account of the province, published in 1698, mentions him as a great Delaware chief, but he leaves the inference that he was deceased. Heckewelder says, "All we know of him is that he was an ancient Delaware chief that never had his equal. He was in the highest degree endowed with wisdom, virtue, prudence, charity, affability, meekness, hospitality, in short, with every good and noble qualification that a human possesses." The tradition that Tamany died and was buried near Prospect hill is not received without contradiction. Mahlon S. Kirkbride alleges that he died in a cabin in Buckingham township, and that a white neighbor buried his remains. He was a firm friend to William Penn, and sometimes sat in Friends' meeting. If Tamany died about 1749, it is singular that none of his English contemporaries mention it. New Britain has three villages, the one named after the township at the crossing of the old North Wales and Alms-house roads, Chalfont, on the North Wales road, a mile west of New Britain, and New Galena, three miles northwest of Doylestown. [Twenty*] dwellings, smith shop, two stores, and a Baptist church which stands over the line in Doylestown township, and a small frame railroad station, comprise New Britain village. On the 1st of May, 1753, Thomas and Jane James conveyed a small lot to one Rebecca Humphrey, widow, near where the store of Jesse Shay stands. She afterward married William Thomas, who probably built a log house on the lot before 1760, the first at the crossroads. Between 1740 and 1750 Jonathan Mason purchased twenty acres of Daniel Stephens, west of the Alms-house road, about opposite the railroad station, and on which, and near the house of Peter Landis, miller, he built a dwelling, and fulling-mill that was run by the waters of Cook's creek. The dwelling was repaired in 1830, and the old mill demolished in 1850. David Riale, now eighty-seven years of age, says that the first and only house at New Britain village, at the close of the last century, was owned and occupied by Alice Gray. On the corner opposite James E. Hill's a building was erected by Ephraim Thomas, in 1807, for a pottery, which was subsequently changed into a dwelling. The post-office at New Britain, the oldest in the township, was established in 1829, the commission of the first postmaster, Isaac W. James, bearing date December 28th. Chalfont, named after Chalfont St. Giles (19), a parish of Bucks, England, in whose Friends' burying-ground William Penn lies buried, is situated at the forks of Neshaminy, formed by the main stream and the north branch. Its earliest village name was Barndtville, then Whitehallville, but when the railroad station, and subsequently the post-office, was changed to Chalfont, the village was called the same. Simon Mathew was the first owner of property, and built on the easterly side of the village, and his brother Edward, owned a considerable tract on the north side. He and a number of others of the name immigrated to Virginia, and Mathews county, on the Chesapeake, was named after them. The first building occupied as a public house was erected by Henry Lewis, an early settler of Hilltown, who owned one hundred acres in the neighborhood, and it was kept by his son-in-law, George Kungle. It was built at least fifteen or twenty years before the Revolution, and is still standing near the present tavern. During the war Kungle removed to Chester county, and thenceforth the house was kept by James Thomas, who still owned it at the close of the century. It is said to have been noted as a place for cock-fighting during the Revolution. James Lewis, a teamster and soldier of that war, used to relate that Morgan's riflemen, on their march to Quebec, staid (sic) a week at Chalfont, where they amused themselves and the inhabitants by shooting at shingles held by each other. When Thomas kept the tavern there were three houses in the village, one stood opposite Haldeman's store, owned by Thomas Mathew, and a second across the bridge. The present village consists of a Lutheran church, two taverns, two stores, divers (sic) mechanics, and about forty dwellings. Considerable business has sprung up at this point since the railroad was opened, and large quantities of farm produce are shipped hence to the Philadelphia market. Both the main stream and branch of Neshaminy are spanned by wooden bridges. New Galena is a hamlet of half a dozen houses, and is the seat of lead mines which have been worked by different parties, but never with success. The ore is said to be rich and in large quantities. A post-office was first established at Whitehallville in 1843, and William Stephens appointed postmaster. [The tavern at Chalfont was kept about sixty years by the Barndt family. The Hartzell mill was built, 1793, and the Butler mill, at the junction of Pine Run and North Branch, 1720-25. At that time there were no mills nearer than the Wissahickon and Perkiomen. The Butler mill was burnt down shortly after the Civil war and not rebuilt. Chalfont was incorporated into a borough in 1902. New Galena, a hamlet of a dozen houses, situated on the slope of the hills, rising from the North Branch valley, was the seat of quite extensive mining operation in the past. It is thought $60,000 were invested in the purchase of land, supposed to be rich in lead ore, in 1863, and much spent in developing it, but the enterprise was a failure. Louis Evans, a Welshman, was the first land owner in that section, but lived elsewhere. His holding was 400 acres. He came early, about 1710- 15, an involuntary immigrant, the ship sailing while on shipboard bidding goodbye to friends about starting for Penn's Colony. The Rowlands, mentioned elsewhere, owned lands on the slopes of these hills the first quarter of the eighteenth century, and the Go dshalks, of Holland origin, settled in this part of the township, 1765, coming down from Hilltown.*] [Among the residents of New Britain during the Revolutionary period, was a Colonel Rheidt, who lived on the farm formerly owned by the late Thomas MacReynolds, on the Neshaminy a mile from the county line. He took sides with the Colonies, hence the ill will of his tory neighbors. On a winter night, 1778, Abijah Wright, from the eastern corner of Hatfield township, Montgomery county, headed a party of tories to capture Rheidt, but himself and friends drove them off. Wright was wounded by a piece of the Colonel's sword, broken off in the encounter, falling on his foot. He was traced by his blood, caught and hanged from the limb of a white oak tree standing on the Bethlehem road below Montgomery Square. One of Wright's confederates, a tory farmer of New Britain, named Mordecai Roberts, was saved from the gallows by his brother William, who was a patriot. This is a township tradition preserved by Edward Mathews, the historian, and is very likely to be true, for New Britain was infested by a nest of tories during the war for independence.*] The surface of New Britain is broken in parts. A ridge runs through the township from Plumstead to the Montgomery line, north of the north branch of Neshaminy, which is called both Iron hill and Highlands. It sheds the water to the south, and from the summit is obtained a fine view of the country in that direction. Prospect hill, in the south-western part of the township, on the upper state road leading to Norristown, is the shoulder of a plateau rather than a hill, to which you ascend after crossing the Neshaminy, and which extends away to the south-west. From the brow is one of the most charming prospects in the county, whence the eye ranges over a delightful scope of cultivated country, and follows the windings of the Neshaminy. The hill and the land across the creek to the north were long the property of the Kelsey family, and in olden times it was called Kelsey's hill. James Forsythe settled near Prospect hill, and his family intermarried with the Kelseys, both Scotch-Irish. Thomas Forsythe, elected canal-commissioner in 1853, was a descendant of this family. An hundred years ago the crossing of the Neshaminy at Godshalk's mill, on the upper state road, was called Morgan's ford, and the crossing of the same stream at Castle Valley, Barton's ford, named from families in New Britain long since extinct in the male line. [Thomas Holcomb, son of Jacob, of Buckingham, erected the Pine Run mill in 1746, which was sold by his assignees to Owen Roberts in 1750, who conveyed to Smith Cornell in 1756. Jacob Stout purchased it in 1767, and it was many years the property of his son-in-law, Gabriel Swartzlander.*] Smith Cornell owned a mill there before 1759, Miller and Evans in 1793, and Fretz's mill in 1795, which year a road was laid out from it to the Bethlehem road "near the German Baptist meeting-house." There are but few notable events to be mentioned in connection with New Britain. In 1805 Benjamin Snodgrass, while proceeding with his wife, in a chase, to visit their son, a minister of the gospel, at Hanover, in Dauphin county, was upset, from which he received wounds that shortly caused his death. As recently as 1821 a wildcat, which weighed eleven pounds and measured three feet nine inches in length, was killed on the farm of Moses Aaron, four miles from Doylestown. Among the aged men of New Britain, whose death is recorded, can be mentioned Colonel Jacob Reed, an officer of the Revolutionary army, who died November 2d, 1820, in his ninety-first year, and Robin, a black man, who died in 1805, at the age of ninety-six. The enumeration of 1784 gives New Britain seven hundred and sixty-four inhabitants, one hundred and forty-nine dwellings, and one hundred and thirteen outhouses, with an area of fifteen thousand eight hundred and thirty acres of land. This includes the five thousand three hundred and fifty acres embraced in Doylestown when that township was laid out, in 1818. The present area is ten thousand four hundred and eighty acres. In 1810 the population was 1,474; in 1820, 1,082, after Doylestown had been formed; in 1830, 1,201, and 270 taxables; 1840, 1,304; 1850, 1,311 whites and 2 colored; 1860, 1,637 whites and 2 colored; and in 1870, 1,692 whites and 15 colored, of which 1,595 were native-born and 112 of foreign birth; [1880, 1,844; 1890, 1,704; 1900, 1,617.*] The mill of William Godshalk, together with one hundred acres, was owned by Samuel Martin in 1752, who, being a millwright, probably built it. John Davis was a justice of the peace in 1778, before whom the citizens of that township took the oath of allegiance to the new state government. [In New Britain, not far from the Lower State road, some four miles from Doylestown, stands a noted dwelling, known throughout all the surrounding country, as "Brown's Folly." We do not know the name of the present owner, nor has it a regular occupant, but picnics, dances and other social gatherings are sometimes held there, and at times the owner and occupants take summer boarders. It was built about half a century ago by one William R. Brown (20).*] (20) William R. Brown, the son of wealthy parent of Philadelphia, with a proclivity for sowing wild oats, was sent up to the goodly village of Doylestown about 1850. Here he met Miss Caroline Lawson, an English girl, who, with her father and mother, made their home at what is now the Fountain House. The two young people fell in love and married, and the husband built "Brown's Folly" for their home, but did not occupy it long. The wife was a very fine horsewoman and galloped the country over. He entered the army during the Civil war, attained the rank of Captain and mustered out the 104th regiment. The wife spent some of her later years at Norristown. We believe both are dead.* End of Chapter XXIII