1 of 5
2 of 5
3 of 5
4 of 5
5 of 5
By Jeffrey Marshall
Bucks County was in the cross-hairs of the Revolution. There were active military actions, partisan fighting and political upheaval. No look at Bucks County during the Revolution can avoid discussing General Washington’s travels and stays through the county. On December 8, 1776 General Washington and the army abandoned Trenton and crossed the Delaware River. He then made his headquarters at Summerseat in the current town of Morrisville. For the next three weeks Washington’s troops were spread along the River from Dunks’ Ferry below Bristol to New Hope to try to prevent the British from taking Philadelphia. His troops were located so as not to be trapped in the elbow of the river in Falls Township.
General Philemon Dickinson was ordered to construct a redoubt to guard the Yardley Ferry and General James Ewing was ordered to guard the area from Yardley to the Trenton Ferry at Morrisville. On December 14th Washington moved his headquarters to Upper Makefield and his supply headquarters to Newtown. His headquarters was at the Keith House, Upper Makefield. Generals Greene and Sullivan occupied houses nearby. On the north side of Jericho Mountain Colonel Henry Knox made his headquarters at the Chapman House. He was in command of the continental artillery. Artillery captain Alexander Hamilton served with Knox and stayed in the house as well.
Washington moved his headquarters over the next two weeks as he reviewed his troop locations. There are several vague references such as a letter written on December 23 from his “Camp above Trenton Falls” This was in preparation for his famous crossing of the Delaware in his bold stroke against Hessian troops at Trenton. In his letter to Col. John Cadwalader who guarded the river at Bristol, Washington warned “For Heaven's sake keep this to yourself, as the discovery of it may prove fatal to us.”
While generally not involved in the famous crossing, the Bucks County militia was called out to march to Philadelphia to help defend the city while others, including General Ewing with the Flying Camp were ordered to guard every suspicious part of the river and to afford assistance in case of attack. However, the majority of Bucks County residents did not actively support General Washington. Washington wrote to the Pennsylvania Council of Safety from Bucks County on December 15th, stating “The Spirit of Disaffection that appears in this County, deserves your serious attention. Instead of giving any assistance in repelling the enemy, the Militia have not only refused to obey your general Summons and that of their commanding Officers, but I am told exult at the Approach of the Enemy and our late Misfortunes.”
After the victory at Trenton, from December 27 through the 29th, Washington was at Newtown and used the house of widow Harris located along the current Sycamore Street as his headquarters. On the latter date, Washington wrote to the President of Congress that “I am just setting out to attempt a second passage over the Delaware”. The Harris house was torn down in 1863 and the Keith house burned in the 1980s.
In 1777, Washington and his troops marched through Bucks County for a second time. He was uncertain where the British would strike next and wanted to have his army at a location from which he could react to their impending move. During the last week of July, 1777, Washington crossed the Delaware at Coryell's Ferry, now New Hope. General Stephen crossed at Howell's Ferry, now Centre Bridge and Stockton, three miles above, and Lord Stirling at Trenton. He waited in Bucks County to hear about British movements. On July 31st, he learned that the British navy had been spotted at the Delaware Bay. The American army marched for Philadelphia.
After inspecting fortifications along the Delaware River at Philadelphia, Washington was still not sure where the British would strike and had his army marched back into Bucks County. From August 10 through August 23, Washington was at the “Neshaminy Camp” while Washington himself stayed at the Moland House in Warwick Township. We know this because Washington’s journal includes a receipt dated August 23 for expenses paid to Mrs. Moland – £5.5.0. Joining Washington were the Marquis de Lafayette and Count Casimir Pulaski of Poland, who volunteered to join the American army.
We next find the Continental army in Bucks county in June, 1778. After a six months' encampment at Valley Forge Washington put it in march the 18th of June, to intercept the British in their retreat through New Jersey after their evacuation of Philadelphia. Washington spent the night of the 20th at Doylestown, with the main body of his army and the next afternoon marched for Coryell's ferry on his way to the Battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778. Accounts indicate that the army included 207 vehicles, 876 draft animals, 32 cannons and 10,000 soldiers. The June ferry crossing took three days.
Washington’s third stay in Bucks County was in mid-1778. On June 20, 1778 he was in the Doylestown vicinity (the borough and township of Doylestown were not yet created), writing “I am now with the main body of the army within ten miles of Coryell's Ferry. The next day he wrote “At Doylestown. The whole army is advancing to the Delaware. We have been much impeded by rain. The troops with General Lee crossed the river last night.” Washington did not stay in a house during this encampment, he pitched his tent near the dwelling of Jonathan Fell, just east of the village of Doylestown.
General Davis’s History of Bucks County relates that while Washington was at Fell’s, the army occupied three encampments: one on the south side of State street, west of Main, one on the ridge east of the Presbyterian church, and along the New Hope pike east of the borough mill. General Lafayette was quartered at the house of Thomas Jones, New Britain, whose best bed was a little too short for the tall young Frenchman. The army was accompanied by some warriors of the Seneca, Oneidas and Tuscarora nations.
The local population felt the effects of the war beyond providing shelter and sustenance for American army. Local patriots formed militia companies referred to as Associators. One important site in the county was Bogart’s Tavern in the village of Buckingham. The tavern was later known as Bennet’s Tavern and is currently known as the General Greene Inn. There are accounts of militia camps at Bogart’s Tavern January 25, 1776, a meeting of the patriot Committee of Inspection on May 22, 1776.
According to records, Bogart’s Tavern housed wounded soldiers. In August 1776 John Bogart was reimbursed for the expenses of burying a soldier of Captain Harman’s company, and for maintenance and nursing of him, and one other soldier, belonging to Captain Willett’s company, both of the 1st Pennsylvania battalion.
Augustine Willett raised a company of troops at his own expense and served under Benedict Arnold during the expedition to Quebec in 1775. He crossed the Delaware River with Washington to attack the Hessians at Trenton the following year. His cousin, Walter Willett, who had been a lieutenant of the Southampton Township Associators in 1775 went over to the British and became a lieutenant in the Bucks County Light Dragoons; one of two Loyalist militia troops raised in the county. Another cousin, Samuel Willett, also served in a cavalry regiment on the side of the British. Both Walter and Samuel had to move to Nova Scotia after the war.
The Declaration of Independence paved the way for changes in the internal government of the colonies and counties as well. In Bucks County, radicals in favor of the revolution pushed loyalists and moderates out of their way. Duly elected bodies were superseded in authority by radical committees.
Not all Bucks County resident were patriots. A week after the Declaration of Independence, on July 10, 1776, Committee of Safety resolved to collect firearms of non-Associators and assess a tax upon Non-Associators as an equivalent for joining the revolution. Troops met at other locations such as at the Four Lanes Ends (now Langhorne). On December 31, 1776 American soldiers took possession of the Quaker Meetinghouse in Middletown and appropriated it as a hospital to the objection of the Friends. Archaeological excavation performed in 1992 revealed that 166 American soldiers were interred on a site located at the corner of Flowers and South Bellevue Avenues.
A case in point occurred on October 1, 1776. Despite the signing of the Declaration of Independence the previous July, local county elections were to be held on that day. Loyalists who had little to do with the revolution had a slate of candidates and were determined to carry on with their traditional election. Patriots mobilized the militia and marched on Newtown, the county seat. Three companies of troops under the command of Major James McMasters and Captains John Jameson and Thomas Wier went to Newtown to suppress the election and disperse the crowd.
Magistrate Gilbert Hicks of Langhorne had to flee after as high sheriff of the county in 1776 because he proclaimed the opening of court in the name of the king. Wisely staying at home on the first day of the session, he was warned by other loyalist sympathizers. He was reportedly hidden in a neighbor’s attic until he could be spirited away. He escaped to Nova Scotia where he was given a gift of land and annual pension. In an entry dated 1776, October 3d, Henry Tomlinson of Bensalem noted in his diary “The Rebels after Gilbert Hicks.” His house in Langhorne was confiscated and sold in 1780.
Bucks County's most famous Loyalist was one of the county’s premier politicians Joseph Galloway. Galloway served as a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, Provincial Council and as Chief Justice of Pennsylvania. In 1777 Lord Howe appointed Joseph Galloway civil commissioner of Philadelphia while the British occupied the city His Growden Mansion property (actually the property of his wife Grace’s family) in Bensalem was seized. Her wartime diary, kept in Philadelphia from 1778 until 1781, reveals how the absence of male family members and the hardships of military conflict transformed women's daily lives. For Galloway, American independence meant poverty, abandonment, loss of social precedence, and the devastating disappearance of the prewar world she had known. She eventually fought to have her properties returned.
The Revolutionary War period brought a tremendous amount of upheaval to Bucks County. Our impressions of peaceful, tranquil Bucks County certainly are not accurate. Not only were troops moving through the county on the way to Philadelphia, New York and Trenton on a regular basis but they is also raiding by American, British and Loyalists. The Doan outlaws were the most famous, or infamous, group of civilian raiders. These outlaws, led by Moses Doan, his brothers, and cousins, raided the homes of tax collectors and other patriots. The outlaws' most notorious deed was the robbery of the Newtown Treasury on the night of October 22, 1781.
On January 13, 1778, the British entered Moreland, Byberry and Bensalem taking at least two prisoners. Between February 18th and 20th, 1778, about forty British Light Dragoons under the command of Newtown’s Richard Hovenden marched towards his former home. Using his knowledge of the area, Hovenden advanced to Jenk’s fulling mill in Middletown where his troops captured two thousand yards of cloth needed by the American army, and on to the current Bird In Hand Tavern in Newtown where in a skirmish they wounded nine men and captured Major Francis Murray and about 30 soldiers.
On May 1, 1778 General Lacey’s militia was attacked by British regulars and Philadelphia Loyalists in what became known as the Battle of Crooked Billet. The battle took place around the Crooked Billet tavern in Hatboro, Montgomery County. The Americans fled. Thirty patriots were killed or wounded and fifty eight were taken prisoner. After the British withdrew, Lacey returned to bury his dead in a mass grave at what is now known as Lacey Park, or Warminster Heights.
General Lacey was related to the prominent Chapman family of Wrightstown Township. The Chapmans were among the township’s earliest settlers and largest landowners. Lacey notes in his writings that his uncles tried to convince him to join the British Army.
The Muster roll of the Philadelphia LightDragoons dated January 10, 1778 notes Samuel Chapman was commissioned as a Lieutenant on November 7, 1777. Abraham Chapman and Amos Chapman served as volunteers. They and David Chapman, all of Wrightstown were “attainted of treason” meaning they lost their civil and political rights, and had their lands forfeited.
In early May of 1778, a British raiding party sailed up the Delaware River and attacked the home of County Lieutenant Joseph Kirkbride. In a May 15, 1778 letter to the Governor, Kirkbride reported the enemy had burned “two Valuable Dwelling Houses with all my Out Houses of Every kind & sort, & a great deal of Furniture, Utensils, Corn, Hay &c. & Intirely Dislodging my Family”
Plundering and robbery got so bad that patriot leaders wrote the following petition requesting a bounty placed on the heads of many Loyalist raiders. A petition was sent to the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania on June 25, 1778 stating “that whereas the Lower part of this County is greatly infested by a set of Traiterous Robbers who being supported and encouraged by the common enemy in Philadelphia make frequent excursions into the Country where they are secreted, aided, and abetted by disaffected Inhabitants, and commit most notorious robberies by pillaging houses and stealing Cattle and Horses”. The petition specifically named seven men.
While the phrase "Brother against brother" is most commonly associated with the American Civil War, but the same predicament faced families in Bucks County where loyalties and military service within families or neighbors were divided between the Revolutionaries and Loyalists. There are a number of stories of neighbors fighting on opposite sides or committing depredations against each other. Bucks County during 1776 and the years following was a much more unsettled, dangerous and violent place to be than most people today imagine.
Jeffrey Marshall is a noted regional historian and past director of the Heritage Conservancy, spending four decades there, he helped elevate the Conservancy’s nationally recognized status as a premier conservator.