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Bristol: the Origins of a Pennsylvania Zjfrcarket Town

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Bristol: the Origins of a Pennsylvania Zjfrcarket Town Bristol: The Origins of a Pennsylvania zJfrCarket Town HE English Quaker settlements that grew along the Dela- ware River in the late seventeenth century gradually Tformed into distinct units which came to be designated as counties. These were originally economic as well as administrative divisions, each one occupying a stretch of the river shore and extend- ing into the hinterland as far as the European settlers had pushed. Each county had a town regularly established and laid out at some advantageous point along the river. The towns served as hubs for trade, travel, and communication, as well as the seats of government, for the various counties. As "central places" in the settled agricul- tural areas in which they were located, they were situated to offer access both to the river, which was the region's greatest highway, and to the surrounding countryside.1 The earliest permanent English settlements in the Delaware Valley were located along the eastern bank of the Delaware River in West New Jersey. Salem (1675) and Burlington (1677) were both laid out as towns intended to be the focal points of the territory in which the rural tracts of the settlers were located. As such, Salem remained the hub of Salem County and Burlington, of Burlington County.2 These towns soon established markets and fairs that served the needs of the settlers in the surrounding countryside. The rural inhabitants resorted to the towns for their business with the 1 James T. Lemon, "Urbanization and the Development of Eighteenth-Century South- eastern Pennsylvania and Adjacent Delaware," William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, XXIV (1967), 502-503. 2 The province of West New Jersey was not divided into counties until 1694, but as early as 1682 the establishment of courts at Burlington and Salem afforded "practical recognition' of counties. The county system gradually superseded the older division into Proprietary "tenths." See Harry I. Effross, "Origins of Post-Colonial Counties in New Jersey," Proceed- ings of the New Jersey Historical Society, LXXXI (1963), 104; William Nelson, "The History of the Counties of New Jersey," ibid., LII (1934), 69-71, 76-78; John E. Pomfret, The Prov- ince of West New Jersey 1609-1J02 . (Princeton, 1956), 167-169. 484 1971 THE ORIGINS OF BRISTOL 485 county court, to purchase supplies, and, when enough land had been cleared to produce more than a subsistence, to sell the products of their farms. A market place was provided in the center of town in the original plan of Burlington, and the town's fair is mentioned in May, 1682, when the Assembly of West New Jersey changed the time of the spring fair so that it would coincide with the time of the Assembly's session.3 The division of the province of Pennsylvania into three counties shortly after William Penn's arrival in October, 1682, reflects the same pattern. The section of Penn's Charter of March 4,1681, which granted him the power to divide the province into "Townes, Hun- dreds and Counties," also empowered him to "erect and incorporate Townes into Burroughs, and Borroughs into Citties, and to make and Constitute ffaires and Markets therein, with all other conve- nient priviledges and immunities according to the merits of the in- habitants and the ffittnes of the places. ."4 Pennsylvania was divided into three counties, Chester, Philadel- phia, and Bucks. In Chester County, the old village of Upland, which had been settled long before by Swedish colonists, was re- named Chester and made the county town. In Philadelphia County, the newly founded town of Philadelphia became the center of eco- nomic, social, and administrative activity, and, as the capital of the province, it soon came to a position of predominance throughout the river valley. Markets at Philadelphia and Chester are mentioned in a letter of February 10, 1683, by Thomas Paschal, who also mentions that he visited a fair at Burlington.5 Penn's Further ^Account of the 'Province of Pennsylvania, published in 1685, boasts that Philadelphia had two markets every week and two fairs a year, and "In other places Markets also, as at Chester and J\(ew-Castle."6 3 Aaron Learning and Jacob Spicer, The Grants, Concessions, and Original Constitutions of the Province of New Jersey (Somerville, N. J., 1881), 442-451; Pomfret, 133. 4 Staughton George, Beniamin M. Nead and Thomas McCamont, Charter to William Penn and Laws of the Province of Pennsylvania . Preceded by the Duke of York's Laws . (Harris- burg, 1879), 86, hereinafter cited as Duke of York's Laws. 5 Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (PMHB)> VI (1882), 324. 6 Ibid., IX (1885), 66. The business acumen of the early Pennsylvania Quakers and their success in the pursuit of commercial interests are discussed in Frederick B. Tolles, Meeting House and Counting House (Chapel Hill, 1948), especially chapter 3. 486 TERRY A. MCNEALY October The third original division of Pennsylvania, Bucks County, was for several years an exception to this pattern in that it had no market town of its own. The small village of Crewcorne, which stretched out along the river bank at the Falls of the Delaware on the present site of Morrisville, and which had been settled in 1679 by Quakers from Burlington, served as the county seat and the place of election. But the influx of new settlers into the county after 1682 did not lead to the transformation of Crewcorne into a significant town, and there is no evidence that a market was ever established there.7 Until 1697 the settlers of Bucks County had to carry their produce down to Philadelphia or cross the river to Burlington to go to market. The site finally chosen for the county's market town, known first as Buckingham, later as New Bristol and then as Bristol, was located in the angle of land formed by the Delaware River, flowing roughly southwest, and Mill Creek, flowing almost directly southward throughout Bristol Township and curving in a southeastward direc- tion just before emptying into the river. The site lay a few miles north of the mouth of Neshaminy Creek and almost directly op- posite Burlington.8 Since the location was several miles below the Falls of the Delaware, the navigability of the river at this point and below was unhindered, and boats could be taken for a short distance into the estuary of Mill Creek for docking. The creek could also be used as a source of power for mills, a possibility that had already become realized to some extent by the time the town was established. The town site itself was high and dry, but it was surrounded by several low, marshy areas, most of which were eventually drained and used as meadow. To the southwest, beyond Mill Creek, were two islands that were separated from the mainland only by "Some small Gutts" which made "a Considerable Quantity of Criple thro- which they Run . ."9 Beyond these, along the river, was a swamp 7 Terry A. McNealy, A History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Part i (Fallsington, Pa., 1970), 25-29. 8 The early years of the town, from its settlement to 1720, have been given brief and often inaccurate coverage in William Bache, Historical Sketches of Bristol Borough . (Bristol, 1853), 5-17; Doron Green, A History of Bristol Borough ... (Camden, 1911), 19-40; W. W. H. Davis, The History of Bucks County . (Doylestown, 1876), 339-342; and J. H. Battle, ed., History of Bucks County . (Philadelphia, 1887), 384-390. 9 Pennsylvania Archives, Second Series, XIX, 415-416. 1971 THE ORIGINS OF BRISTOL 487 that came to be known as "Green Swamp."10 In addition, there were swampy areas along Mill Creek just above the town. Part of this area was developed into mill ponds, but portions remained marshy until well into the nineteenth century.11 The earliest recorded land grant on the west side of the Delaware in the vicinity of Bristol was Governor Richard Nicolls* patent to Peter Alrichs on February 15, 1667/8, for "two certaine Islands in Delaware River scituate lying and being on ye West side of ye said River and about South West from ye Island comonly called Matineconck ye wch is the biggest of the two Islands haveing beene formerly knowne by the name of Kipps Island and by ye Indian name of Koomenakanokonck containing about a myle in length and half a myle in breadth and ye other Island lying somewhat to the North of ye former being of about half a myle in length and the quarter of a myle in breadth," along with "the small creek . neare unto the lesser Island running up a mile wth in land to have liberty to erect and build a mill thereupon where shall be found most convenient as also a convenient proportion of land on each syde of the said creek for Egresse & Regresse to and from the mill . ." Nicolls granted all of this land, "to wch there appeares no other lawfull Pretenders," to Alrichs for a quitrent of four otter skins a year.12 10 This swamp is mentioned as the southwest boundary of the land of William Sanford in a resurvey made following a warrant dated June 28, 1683. Warrants and Surveys of the Province of Pennsylvania, III, 521, Municipal Archives, Philadelphia City Hall, cited here- inafter as Warrants and Surveys; and in a deed of William Homer to Samuel Carpenter, Dec. 16, 1713, Bucks County Deed Book 5, 58, Doylestown Courthouse. It is called "Green Swamp" in a deed of Hannah Carpenter et al. to Joseph Bond, May 1-2, 1716, Deed Book 5, 150-151.
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