THE HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, CHAPTER XLVIII, ROADS. 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 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. Transcriptionist's note: Because an additional chapter (on Bridgeton) was added to the 1905 edition, the chapter numbers for the 1905 edition will be one number ahead of 1876 addition. _____________________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER XLVIII, 1876 Edition or CHAPTER XIX, 1905 Edition ROADS Roman maxim. -Roads like the arteries and veins. -Our great highways. -Path from the falls down. -No roads before Penn. -Penn's system of roads. -Northwest lines. -Road from Falls to Southampton and Philadelphia. -Ancestor of Bristol turnpike. -Poquessing to Neshaminy. -Durham road. -Begun in 1693. -Extended to Tohickon and Easton. -The York road starts at Willow Grove. -Opened to the Delaware. -Easton road. -Opened to Point Pleasant. -The Street and Bristol roads. -County line. -Old and New Bethlehem roads. -River road. -Middle road. -All lead to Philadelphia. -Post-roads. -Philadelphia and Trenton railroad. -When opened. -North Pennsylvania railroad. -Pennsylvania railroad. -Early stage-lines. Those who settled the wilderness west of the Delaware both understood, and practiced, the maxim of the Romans, "that the first step in civilization is to make roads," for the opening of highways was one of their first concerns. The roads of a country, in their uses, are not unlike the arteries and veins of the human body, and a properly arranged system of the former is as necessary to a prosperous condition of society as the latter to the life of man. Through the one the blood courses to the common centre, giving health and vigor to the system, while along the roads the products of labor are carried to the marts of commerce, which brings prosperity to the state. If the palm of the hand be laid upon the site of Philadelphia, and the thumb and fingers extended, they will mark five of the great highways of the county, namely: the Bristol turnpike, the Middle, or Oxford, road, the York, Easton, and Bethlehem roads. These are intersected by other highways, parts of the same system, the Durham, Bristol, Street, and North Wales roads, and the county line, which are feeders to the former. These mostly connect objective points, and may properly be considered the great arterial highways of the county. The local roads that cross them and lead from point to point in the same, or adjoining, neighborhoods, may be compared to the smaller veins of the human body, but are, nevertheless, an indispensable part of the system. There was a traveled route from the falls down the west bank of the Delaware to the lower settlements many years before the English came, but it was no more than a bridle-path through the woods. Prior to Penn's arrival there was little use for roads, because the Dutch, Swedes, and Fins lived on the river and creeks emptying into it, and went from place to place in boats, and there were no wheeled carriages to require opened roads. With the English came vehicles, and then arose a necessity for roads along which they could travel through the wilderness. The earliest mention of a public road in this county was in 1677, when the "King's path," or "highway," was laid out up the river to the falls through Bensalem, Bristol and Falls to Morrisville. It started at Upland and crossed the streams at the head of tide-water, and through this county had the general direction of the Bristol turnpike. It was repaired in 1682. In 1678 the Upland court ordered roads laid out between plantations, under a penalty of twelve guilders, and Duncan Williamson, Edward [Edmund*] Draufton, John Brown, and Henry Hastings, of this county, were on the jury to open them. At the first court held at Philadelphia, 1683, the grand jury ordered the King's road from the Schuylkill to Neshaminy "be marked out and made passable for horses and carts where needful." This road was often changed and improved, but down to 1700 it must have been an indifferent way, for in August of that year the council ordered it to be cleared of trees, logs and stumps so that it "may be made passable, commodious, safe and easie for man, horse, cart, wagons and teams." William Penn intended to have a liberal and uniform system of roads in this county, and in the original survey there was an allowance for them of six acres in every hundred. He projected a series of highways on northwest lines parallel to each other, and running back from the Delaware into the interior, to be intersected by others as nearly at right angles as circumstances would permit. Before 1695 the county line, the Street, and Bristol roads, the road from Addisville by way of Jamison's corner and alms-house, to New Britain, the road from Churchville to the Neshaminy at Wrightstown, and a number of others, were projected on this plan. But his plans were interfered with. When the early settlers came to enclose their lands, before the roads were laid out, they were encroached upon by the fences, and the system could not be carried out, and gradually the country became covered with a net-work of crooked roads. Down to 1700 the provincial council and court exercised concurrent jurisdiction in the laying out and opening of roads, but that year an act authorized and empowered the justices of each county to lay out and confirm all roads, "except the highway and public roads," which remained in force until repealed in 1802. Penn took great interest in the roads of the county after his return to England from his first visit. In his instructions to Lieutenant-governor Blackwell, in 1688, he desires that "care be taken of the roads and highways of the county, that they may be straight and commodious for travelers, for I understand they are turned about by the planters, which is a mischief that must not be endured." A few of our roads were laid out straight as Penn desired, and have so remained. In 1689, in consequence of the badness of the roads leading to Philadelphia, the farmers of this county were in the habit of taking their grain and other produce to Burlington. Prior to 1692 but two roads are on record, the King's highway, and a cart-road laid out in 1689, from Philadelphia on petition of Robert Turner and Benjamin Chambers, possibly the beginning of the Oxford or Middle road. That from Philadelphia, via Bristol, to Morrisville, the ancestor of the present Bristol turnpike, is the oldest road in the county laid out by law. At a meeting of councils, November 19, 1686, was taken into consideration "ye unevenness of ye road from Philadelphia to ye falls of Delaware," and Robert Turner and John Barnes, of Philadelphia, and Arthur Cook and Thomas Janney, of Bucks, with the county-surveyor, were ordered to meet and lay out a more convenient road "from ye Broad street in Philadelphia to ye falls aforesaid." Probably the first road running up the river to and above Bristol was that laid out in 1697 from the Poquessing, crossing the Neshaminy at Bridgewater, where the ferry was kept by John Baldwin, and thence up to Joseph Chorley's ferry (1) over the Delaware below the falls. A bridge was ordered to be built over Poquessing by Bucks and Philadelphia. This road was turnpiked to Poquessing in 1803-4, and finished to Morrisville in 1812, at a cost of $209,300. The milestones were set up in 1763, by an insurance company, at a cost of £33. The bed of this road was probably changed before it was piked. (1) Probably Bordentown. In 1693 a road was laid out from the falls to Southampton, and the same year was continued to Frankford and Philadelphia - no doubt the origin of the road from Morrisville, via Fallsington, Attleborough and Feasterville to Bustleton, and Holmesburg, to the city. This afforded an outlet to market for the farmers who lived in the upper part of Middletown, and the lower parts of North and Southampton. It was turnpiked, by authority of an act of Assembly of March 5, 1804, as far up as the Buck tavern, in Southampton township. Two years later a road was laid out from Richard Hough's plantation, near Taylorsville, via the falls and Cold spring, to the Bristol ferry, marked by blazed trees through the woods. It may have followed the line of the back River road part of the distance, although that is not known definitely, and was opened in 1695, but had a jury on it in 1692. In the summer of 1696 a road was laid out from Newtown township to Gilbert Wheeler's, near the falls, by the way of "Old man's" or "Cow creek," and "Stony hill," no doubt the original road to the falls, via Summerville, and Fallsington, striking the Bristol turnpike near Tyburn. The road laid out by the council in 1697, from the Poquessing to Neshaminy, and thence to Bristol, turned at right angles near Galloway's house, then crossed the creek, and after passing Langhorne's mansion, turned to the left and went on through Attleborough and Oxford to the falls. At one time it was the stage-road from Philadelphia to New York, the stage being advertised to leave Philadelphia in the morning, and breakfast at Four Lanes Ends. The 18-mile stone is on Galloway's hill, and the 19 stone at the top of Langhorne's hill. A road ran along by Langhorne's house and mill, meeting the Bristol road at the foot of the hill on the road from Attleborough to Newportville. The part of this road to Galloway's ford was vacated about 1839, and the Bensalem part about 1851 or 1852. (2) (2) Dr. Buckman. The Durham road, in olden times, was one of the most important highways in the county. It was begun in 1693, when the court, at the June session, appointed a jury to lay out a road from Newtown to the Bristol ferry. In 1696 the grand jury presented the necessity of a road from Wrightstown to Bristol, which was opened in 1697 by Phineas Pemberton, and that became another link. From Attleborough it ran to Joseph Growden's, where it branched, one branch running to Duncan Williamson's, at Dunk's ferry. About 1703 the inhabitants of Buckingham and Solebury petitioned for a road from William Cooper's, in Buckingham, to Bristol, which was opened about 1706, but the streams were not bridged. It was in tolerable order to the west end of Buckingham mountain. In 1721 it was opened up to Fenton's corner, being surveyed by John Chapman, and in 1726 the bed of the road was somewhat changed up to Thomas Brown's plantation, in Plumstead. These were all sections of the Durham road, opened as the wants of the people required. In 1732, on the petition of the owners of Durham furnace, the road was extended up to the ford on Tohickon, near John Orr's, in Plumstead. It was laid out to the furnace in 1745, and ten years afterward extended to Easton. This gave a continuous highway from Bristol, up through the best settled portions of the county, to the Lehigh. But is was far from being a good road, and jury after jury was summoned to re-view, straighten and widen it. Round the western base of Buckingham mountain there were two roads for a time, the people refusing to travel the one the court laid out. In 1797 a jury re-surveyed and changed that portion from Newtown to Bristol, and in 1798 the bed of the old road between Newtown and the line of Plumstead and Buckingham was somewhat changed, and recommended to be opened 40 feet wide. That portion of the road from the Plumstead and Buckingham line to the line of Northampton county was re-viewed in 1807. In 1733 a road was laid out from Durham road, in the upper part of Buckingham, down through Greenville and across the mountain, falling into the Durham road again at Pineville. It met a violent opposition from the inhabitants of the township, but it was asked by the proprietors of Durham furnace to give them a more convenient way down to Wrightstown. The York and Easton roads, which branch from a common trunk at Willow Grove, were opened to connect the upper Delaware with Philadelphia, and give the inhabitants a more direct route to the city. Like our other great roads, they were opened in sections. Like our other great roads, they were opened in sections. That part from Cheltenham to Philadelphia, and to extend up to Peter Chamberlain's, about the county line, was granted and confirmed by council in August, 1693, but we do not know how soon afterward it was opened. The 27th of January, 1710, the inhabitants of Buckingham and Solebury petitioned the council for a convenient road, "to begin at the Delaware opposite John Reading's (3) landing; from thence the most direct and convenient course to Buckingham meeting-house; and from thence through the lands of Thomas Watson, by the house of Stephen Jenkins, and Richard Wells, and so forward the most direct and convenient course to Philadelphia." The jury, composed of Thomas Watson, John Scarborough, Jacob Holcomb, Nathaniel Bye, Matthew Hughes, Joseph Fell, Samuel Cart, Stephen Jenkins, Thomas Hallowell, Griffith Miles, Job Goodson, and Isaac Norris, were to lay out the road and return their report to the secretary in six months. It was twice re-viewed in the next two years, and some alterations made. Sarah Eaton, of Abington, protested against the road, because it "mangled" her plantation. The whole distance was set down at 31 miles. Down to 1740, five miles of the road next the Delaware were not in a condition for travel, and the court refused to put it in order. The road from New Hope, then Wells' ferry, to Buckingham meeting-house was opened a few years afterward. After the York road was laid out and opened, it was several times re-viewed for the purpose of changing the bed, widening and straightening. Juries were on it in 1752, 1756, 1790, 1811, and 1820. (4) Before this road was opened the people of Solebury and Buckingham went to Philadelphia down the Durham road and crossed the Neshaminy at Galloway's ford, a mile above Hulmeville. (3) Reading's landing was on the New Jersey side of the river opposite Centre Bridge, and now the flourishing village of Stockton. (4) The York road was relaid in 1790, from Samuel Johnson's corner at the foot of Buckingham Meeting House hill to low water mark at Coryell's ferry, and confirmed by the court 50 feet wide. In the past 50 years the York road has been turnpiked the whole distance in four sections, and by that many companies; Willow Grove to the Street road, 1848, Street road to Centreville, 1856, Centreville to Lahaska, and Lahaska to New Hope, 1853. Two miles of the Centreville-Lahaska pike runs over the roadbed of the Buckingham and Doylestown, chartered, 1843.* The Easton road begins at Willow Grove. In 1721, Sir William Keith, Governor of the Province, purchased 800 acres on the county line, in Horsham and Warrington, where he built a country house, still known as Graeme Park, and a mill. In March, 1722, he asked the council to open a road through the woods from his settlement to Horsham, and from there down to the bridge at Round Meadow run, now Willow Grove, which was laid out April 23d, confirmed the 28th of May, and surveyed by Nicholas Scull. In 1723 a road was laid out from Dyer's mill, now Dyerstown, two miles above Doylestown, down to Governor Keith's plantation, making the second link in the Easton road. (5) An effort was made in 1736 to have the course of the road changed between the Neshaminy and alms-house hill, because it ran through the middle of John Beuley's [Bewley's*] farm, but it was not successful. In 1738 the Dyer's mill road was extended through Plumstead, commencing at Danborough, to which place it had already been laid out, to the Delaware at Enoch Pearson's landing, now Point Pleasant, to meet a road coming to the river on the New Jersey side. The road to Point Pleasant was afterward extended westward to Whitehallville to meet the Butler road, and is known as the Ferry road. It was surveyed by John Chapman. This was called Dyer's mill road for many years, and was only changed to Easton road when it was extended to the Lehigh. It was turnpiked from Doylestown to Willow Grove in 1839 or 1840, and some years subsequently the turnpike was continued up to Plumsteadville under a new charter. After the York and Easton roads were opened, the want of a road from the Delaware across the county toward the Schuylkill was felt. This was met in 1730 by opening one from what is now Centreville, although it is said to have commenced at Buckingham meeting-house, to the Montgomery line, at Ross Gordon's corner, to which point a road had already been opened from the Schuylkill. When the State road was opened from New Hope to Norristown in 1830, it was laid on the bed of the old road as far as it extended, and is now known as the Upper State road. (5) In 1753 there were beaver dams along the Dyer's mill road. The Street road, through Southampton, Warminster, and Warrington, was to start at Bensalem and run on a northwest line, and land was reserved for it. Nevertheless it was commenced at the Delaware, and the first section was laid out in 1696 from Dunk's ferry landing up to the Bristol turnpike, less than a mile long, and 60 feet wide. This was opened at the request of Governor Andrew Hamilton, of New Jersey, postmaster-general, in order that the mail might be able to get from the ferry to the King's highway. The justices of the peace of the county were directed to have the road opened, and it was probably the post-route from New York to Philadelphia at that time. For convenience a ferry was established on the Jersey side of the river, and the mails, passengers and goods here crossed the river for Philadelphia, and then followed the king's great road. The 10th of June, 1697, the council directed William Biles and Phineas Pemberton to "discourse" the people of New Jersey about laying out a post-road from that side of the river for New York. Like other roads this was laid out in sections and at various times. The lower part, as far as Feasterville and probably higher up, was opened early. In April, 1737, a jury laid it out from the Buck road nearly its entire length, although portions of it had been laid out before, as between Johnsville and York road in 1731. The jury of 1737 deflected the road to the left to the Neshaminy after it crossed the Easton road, up which it was laid until it crossed the county line. This part has been vacated many years. The names of the land-owners, on the line of the road in Southampton and Warminster, in 1737, were, Jones, Jackman, Duffield, Vandike, Leedom, Banes, Morris, Watts, Longstreth, Scout, Craven, Rush, Dungan, Todd, William Tennent, Cadwallader, Ingard [Inyard*], R. Gilbert, S. Gilbert, and J. Comly, who owned three-quarters of the land in the two townships. As the road was not originally laid out on the land reserved, a jury was appointed in 1793 to re-view it, but their action is not known. In 1807 the portion from Feasterville down to Dunk's ferry was re-viewed and confirmed. The Street road was projected four polls wide, but was laid out two polls, the road crossing the line at Davisville. In 1794 it was re-surveyed and confirmed 33 feet wide from Warrington to the Bensalem line. The Bristol road, the line between Southampton, Warminster and Warrington, and Northampton, Warwick and Doylestown, is another northwest line road. It, too, was laid out at various times, and in sections. The first jury on it was in April, 1724, on petition to have the road continued from Robert Heaton's mill, in the lower corner of Southampton, probably on Neshaminy, up "to ye upper inhabitants." It was viewed and laid out to the Warrington line, and in May, 1737, another jury continued it to the upper part of Hilltown, but if opened it was not on the northwest line. There were several subsequent juries on it before it was made straight from end to end as we now see it, in 1766, from the Philadelphia and Attleborough road to Hartsville, and in 1772, from Warrington to the Butler road which straightened and confirmed it 33 feet wide. The Montgomery county line road, also on a northwest line, was opened by piecemeal between 1722 and 1752. From the Easton road to four miles above, it was opened in 1722, apparently to accommodate Governor Keith. It was laid out to Jacob Chamberlain, at the York road in 1731, and above that to the extent of the two counties in 1752. The opening was objected to because it was not needed, as there was a road on either side about a mile distant. It was improved by subsequent juries. That part of it from the Byberry and Wrightstown road, up to the Middle road, was probably not opened until 1773, and the stretch from Craven's corner to the York road in 1774. The Old Bethlehem road, another of the arteries of travel and traffic, was for years the great highway from the Lehigh to Philadelphia, and to which numerous roads led on either side. It was gradually extended northward as settlements reached up the country, and in 1738 it terminated at Nathaniel Irish's stone-quarry in the Hellertown road at Iron hill, Saucon township. It was continued to Bethlehem and Nazareth, in the summer of 1745, and beyond the latter point it had connection by bridle-paths, with De Pui's settlement at the Minisink. The road crossed the Lehigh a short distance below Bethlehem, at the head of the island now owned by the Bethlehem iron company. From the Minisink the bridle-paths tapped the Mine road, which led to Esopus on the Hudson. The Bethlehem road was turnpiked, the second in the county, in 1805-6, and the books were opened for stock at the taverns of George Weaver and William Strawn, at Strawntown, the 11th and 12th of June of that year. The first settlers at the Lehigh traveled the well-trodden Indian paths that led northward from Philadelphia, crossing the river a mile below Bethlehem, the route of the Minsi Indians in returning from below to their homes beyond the Blue mountains. When Daniel Nitchman led his company of 100 Moravians to Bethlehem in 1742, they traveled this path on foot, with packhorses carrying the necessary implements to commence the new settlement. This mode of travel was retained some years after public roads were laid out. The Old and New Bethlehem roads unite at Line Lexington, the former via Hellertown, Pleasant Hill, and Applebachsville, and the latter via Coopersburg, Quakertown, and Sellersville. The New Bethlehem road leaves the county line at Reiff's store, and the trunk road below Line Lexington to Philadelphia is the bed of the Old Bethlehem road. An old road ran through the upper part of the county, from North Wales to Allentown, via Trumbauersville and Milford Square, and is called the Old Allentown road. It was the "King's highway," but all trace of the royal road has disappeared. The road along the river bank above the falls at Trenton, and known as the River road, had its origin in the order of court at April term, 1703, when, by order of council to the justices, a jury was appointed "to lay out a road leading from the King's road, ending at the falls of Delaware, to the upper plantations situate higher up and near the said river." Under this order the upper River road, as it is called, was probably laid out, for the road on the river bank from Trenton ferry was not laid out up to Yardleyville until 1794. It was met by a road from New Hope many years later, while the upper River road between the same points was laid out in 1773. From New Hope up to Mitchel's ferry it was laid out in 1803, and from Williams's through the Narrows to Purcel's [Pursell's*] ferry in 1792. The road from Philadelphia to Oxford, the first link in the Middle, or Oxford, road, was granted about 1693. Some years afterward it was extended to the Delaware at Yardleyville, via Newtown. It was next opened up to the Anchor, from Addisville, to intersect the Durham road, and to give those who traveled down it a nearer and more direct route to Philadelphia. In 1803 it was re-surveyed from Newtown to the Montgomery county line, eight and one-half miles. It was called the Middle road, because it lay about midway between the road that led to the Trenton ferry and the York road to Wells' ferry, now New Hope. No road in the county has led to so much controversy as the Street road between Solebury and Buckingham, and it was not permanently laid until 1825, after a century and a quarter of dispute. This is one of the northwest line roads, and was projected at the time the lands along it in the two townships were first surveyed. The Surveyor-General marked off, on the return of surveys, a strip of land four polls wide for the road, and on the return of Cutler's re-survey, in 1703, a road is located between the two townships. The land along this road was surveyed as early as 1700 by Phineas Pemberton, and it was all taken up by 1702. The road has been surveyed and re-viewed a number of times. It will be observed that the great highways, namely: the road from the falls at Trenton, and the Middle, Durham, York, Easton, and the two roads from Bethlehem, led toward Philadelphia, the great objective point of the province, whither the wealth, produced by labor and capital, flowed in its course to the sea. We do not know when the first post-road or mail-route was established in or through this county, but at the beginning of the present century the mail facilities were very much extended. At the session of Congress of 1805 post-routes were established from Bristol to Quakertown via Newtown and Doylestown, and from New Hope via Doylestown to Lancaster, there and back once a week. These routes appear to have been arranged to facilitate the distribution of Asher Miner's paper, and the mails were carried for several years by the late John McIntosh, of Doylestown. In addition to the turnpikes already mentioned in these pages, we have the Byberry and Bensalem pike, which was chartered March, 1848, and opened for travel in 1852. The length is five and a quarter miles, and it cost $11,442. The Byberry and Andalusia turnpike, two miles in length, was chartered in 1857. The road-bed is composed of gravel eight inches in depth, and the cost was $5,000. The turnpike from the Easton road, half a mile north of Doylestown, to Dublin, in Bedminster township, about six miles long, was completed in the fall of 1875, and cost about $25,000. The first railroad to traverse the county was the Philadelphia to Trenton [via Bristol*], chartered the 23d of February, 1832, [1833*] and was commenced to be built shortly afterward, [and completed to Philadelphia in 1835.*] The first rails were flat iron bars, laid on wooden string-pieces, and it was not infrequent that the bars ["snake head"*] got loose and run up through the cars, killing a passenger. Cars, drawn by horses, (6) were put upon the road in the latter part of 1833, and they were the motive power until steam was introduced, the first locomotive being put upon the road in the early part of 1836. This road has been greatly improved since then, and now, under the management of the Pennsylvania railroad, with its three tracks, is one of the best in the country, and an immense amount of transportation is carried over it. More than 20 years now elapsed before another railroad was opened to travel in Bucks county, although meanwhile several roads had been surveyed, but failed to be built for want of funds. (6) 1905 addition: [The road is now a part of the Reading system to New York, and splendidly equipped. In 1871 the Pennsylvania Railroad Company obtained possession of the United Railroads of New Jersey, including the Trenton bridge and the road from Kensington to Trenton, and since then it has been greatly improved, the tracks multiplied, and an immense number of passengers carried and freight transported. It is part of one of the great trunk lines between the Pacific, the Gulf and the Atlantic.*] The building of the North Pennsylvania railroad, between 1853-7, from Philadelphia to the Lehigh at Bethlehem, gave a lively impetus to the upper section of our county through which it runs. The main line enters the county at Telford and leaves it at Hilltop, the distance between these points being about 14 miles - the towns on this part of the line being Sellersville, Perkasie, Telford, and Quakertown. The construction was begun in June, 1853, and the road was opened through to the Lehigh the first of January, 1857, and trains ran regularly the whole length of the main line the 8th of July. It was opened to Gwynedd July 2d, 1855, and to Lansdale, 22 miles from Philadelphia, and the branch roads to Doylestown, ten and two-thirds miles, October 9th, 1856. The entire length of the main line is 55-1/2 miles. The tunnel near Perkasie is 2,160 feet long [but much of it was cut away.*] The entire cost of the road, including equipment, to October 31st, 1874, was $8,733,120.09. The earnings for the fiscal year ending same time, were $1,424,463.18; and 1,052,859 [18,859*] passengers, and 902,322 tons of freights were carried. The company controls and works two branch roads, built under other charters - the Northeast railroad, nine and eight-tenths miles long, from Abington to the Bristol road station, and the Stony Creek road, ten and three-tenths miles from Lansdale to Norristown. About eight miles of the Doylestown branch and two and a half of the Northeast road are in Bucks county. About twelve miles of the Delaware river branch of the North Pennsylvania, from Jenkintown station to a point on the Delaware one mile below Yardleyville, are in Bucks county. The distance is 20-1/2 miles, very straight, and of a maximum grade of 37 feet to the mile. This road, connecting with the Delaware and Bound Brook and Central railroad of New Jersey, is an important link in a new through road between Philadelphia and New York, 88 miles in length. The road was completed in 1876, and was opened to travel the first day of May. The Philadelphia and Newtown railroad is now in working order to the Fox Chase, about eight miles from the city. (1905 updated replacement of the previous paragraph:) [Besides the railroads already mentioned, there are others in Bucks county that assist in travel and the transportation of goods. The Philadelphia and Newtown road under lease to the Philadelphia and Reading, was opened for travel May 1, 1876, and since then passed into the Reading system. Following this the Pennsylvania Company built a road across the Delaware-Schuylkill peninsula from a point on the Schuylkill river to Morrisville, on the Delaware. In common parlance it is known as the "cut off," and relieves the congested freight condition of the Pennsylvania. More recently a branch road was built from Quakertown on the North Penn, to Reigelsville, on the Delaware, where it taps the Durham furnace, and enables it to transport its output to market, and receive coal and iron ore at less expense. The last on the list is the trolley road, the poor man's railway, which is rapidly traversing our county in all directions, several roads being in running order and others projected. Doylestown, the county seat, is rapidly becoming a trolley centre, and this convenient mode of travel already taps our neighboring cities and towns on the North, East and South, and it will not be long before the Schuylkill is tapped by a direct line.*] [When we compare the present, cheap, safe and pleasant modes of travel, and compare them with that of the early settlers, the change is marvelous indeed.*] Bucks county had been settled many years before there was any public conveyance running through it or on its border. The county was new, the roads bad, and the few travelers rode on horseback along Indian paths. For several years public conveyance was confined to the river, up and down which boats plied with passengers and goods. When transferred to the land, the route of travel mainly lay along the west bank of the Delaware, over the thoroughfare that crossed at the falls, and thence to New York running through our river townships. Many of these earlier conveyances were dignified with the name of "flying machines," but judging from the time they made they did not fly at a very rapid rate. About 1732 [1752* (a mistake, I believe)] a line of stage-wagons was run between Burlington and Amboy and return, once a week, by Solomon Smith and Thomas Moore, connecting at each end of the line with water communication to Philadelphia and New York. In 1734 a line ran to Bordentown, where passengers and goods were transferred to "stage-boats" for Philadelphia. A new line was put on in 1750 which promised to make the distance between the two cities in 48 hours less than any other line. In 1752 passengers were carried between these points twice a week. The success of this line started opposition from Philadelphia, which promised to make the trip in 25 or 30 hours less time, but failed to keep it. In 1753 Joseph Borden, Jr., started with his "stage-boat" from the "Crooked-Billet wharf," in Philadelphia, every Wednesday morning, and proceeded to Bordentown, where passengers took a "stage-wagon" to John Clark's house of entertainment, opposite Perth Amboy. This route was claimed to be 10 miles shorter, and was announced to arrive at New York 24 hours earlier than by any other conveyance. The first stage-coach between Philadelphia and New York was set up in 1756, by John Butler, who had kept a kennel of hounds for some wealthy gentlemen of that city fond of fox-hunting. When the population became too dense to indulge in this sport the hounds were given up, and the old keeper established in the business of staging. The stages ran up and down the west bank of the Delaware, crossing at the falls, and three days were required between the two cities. Three years later Butler ran his stage-wagon and stage-boat twice a week, setting out from his house "at the sign of the Death of the Fox, in Strawberry alley," on Monday morning, reaching Trenton ferry the same day. He received the return passengers at the ferry, and took them to Philadelphia on Tuesday. In 1765 a new line was started to run twice a week, but the speed was not increased. The following year a third line of stage-wagons was put on. They were improved by having springs under the seats, and the trip was made in two days in summer and three in winter. They, too, were called "flying machines." They struck the Delaware at the Blazing Star ferry, a short distance above Trenton bridge, where the old ferry-houses are still standing. This ferry was the thoroughfare down to the building of the Trenton bridge in 1805. The fare in Butler's flying machine was three pence per mile, or twenty shillings for the whole distance. In 1773 Charles Bessonett, a resident of Bristol, started a line of stage-coaches, the first of their character to run through from Philadelphia to New York; the trip was made in two days, and the fare was $4 for inside, and 20 shillings for outside, passengers. These stages were probably made like the English post-coaches. In 1781 Johnson and James Drake advertised to run a four-horse "flying stage-wagon" between Philadelphia and Elizabethtown, making two trips a week. It was to leave the city "every Monday and Thursday morning, precisely at the rising of the sun, breakfast at Four Lanes Ends, [Attleborough,] shift horses, cross the new ferry just above the Trenton falls, and dine at Jacob Bergen's, at Princeton." The fare was 40 shillings, or $5.33 of our present currency. From time to time lines were started with increased accommodations or made better time. In 1801 Thomas Porter ran a two-horse "coachee" from John C. Hummill's tavern, now City tavern, Trenton, to John Carpenter's, Philadelphia, down one day and back the next. In 1802 Peter Probasco and John Dean ran a coach between Trenton and Philadelphia daily, except Sunday. In 1807 John Mannington put on a line of "coachee stages," leaving Philadelphia at eight A. M. and reaching Trenton to dinner, fare $1.50. The first line of stages to connect with a steamboat was in 1819, when John Lafaucherie and Isaac Merriam ran a line of coaches with the steamboat Philadelphia, at the Bloomsbury wharf, starting from the Rising Sun hotel. In 1828 there were three boats on the Delaware between Philadelphia and Trenton - the Trenton, Captain Jenkins, Burlington, Captain Martin, and the Marco Bozzaris, Captain Lane. In 1840 the Hornet commenced to make regular trips between Philadelphia and Trenton, for 25 cents each way. The Edwin Forrest began to run between the same points in 1850, and is still on the line. The stages continued to run until the Philadelphia and Trenton railroad was opened, when they were withdrawn forever. In the spring of 1828 John Bessonett, James Hacket and company, carried passengers and mails from Philadelphia to Bristol by steamboat, where they took coaches to Easton via Newtown, Lumberville, Point Pleasant and Erwinna, arriving at Easton about six P. M. The first stage up the River road was probably that run by John Hellings, about the time the canal was dug. It was afterward run by Hammet and Weartz, from Trenton to Easton, and carried the mails. The first "stage-wagon" from the Lehigh to Philadelphia, which started the 10th of September, 1763, by George Klein, the pioneer of the numerous lines from that time to the introduction of steam, traveled down the Old Bethlehem road. The driver was John Hoppel, at £40 per annum. It carried both passengers and goods. The stage left Philadelphia every Thursday morning and returned the following Tuesday. The first year the proprietor lost £82. 12s. 7d. by his venture, and in November, 1764, Klein sold out to John Francis Oberlin for £52, Pennsylvania currency. Passengers were charged 10 shillings either way. Half a century ago the stage from Bethlehem to Philadelphia, running down through this county over the Bethlehem road, was driven by John Feuerabend. He sounded his bugle as he left the village in the morning, and approached it on his return in the evening. He was born in Wuerttemberg, in 1786, and when young, served as a soldier under Bonaparte. He was severely wounded several times, survived the hardships of the Russian campaign, and one time was coachman for the great Napoleon. He was a mail-carrier, and stage-driver in several states. He spent his last days in Northampton county alms-house, where he died in winter of 1874. Stages were running between Philadelphia and New York on the York road as early as 1805. In 1831 there were two daily lines between Easton and Philadelphia. These stages ran over the Durham road until the River road was opened in 1815-16, and along that until the Delaware Division canal was commenced, when they changed back to the Durham road, until the canal was finished. When the Belvidere-Delaware railroad was opened to travel, in 1854, the stages to Easton were taken off, and they passed into history. (7) (7) Prior to the completion of the Belvidere-Delaware Railroad, the only means of reaching Easton from Trenton, by stage, was up the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware, leaving Trenton 11. A. M. and, with five changes of horses, reaching Bellis' hotel, Easton, 7. P. M. Returning, the stage left Easton at 5 A. M. and arrived at Trenton at 11. The Delaware was crossed at Yardley, going up and returning. Hammet and Weartz were proprietors for many years, and one of the best drivers was James Gafney, of Trenton. END OF CHAPTER XLVIII or XIX, 1905 edition.