100
 

HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY,
 

CHAPTER   VII.
 

THE OKGANIZATION OF TOWNSHIPS.
 

FALLS.
 

169S-
 

Organization of townships.—Reservations.—Jury appointed.—Five townships ordered.
—Falls.—Its early importance.—First settlers, .John Acreman, Pichard Pidgway,
William Biles, etc.—Meeting established.—First marriage.—Meeting-house built.
—The discipline.—Pennsbury.—Mary Becket.—The charities of Falls.—Earliest
ferry,—The Croziers.—Kirkbrides.—General Jacob Brown.—His appointment.—
Anna Lee.—Manor Baptist church.—Falls library.—Old graveyards,—Cooper
homestead,—Charles Ellet,—Joseph White.—The swamp.—Indian field.—Eoads.
—Villages.—Surface of township,—Crow-scalps,—Population.

The organization of townships, with an account of the pioneers
who settled them, and thus transformed the native forest into pro¬
ductive farms, opened roads and built houses, with a sketch of their
gradual expansion and growth in the elements of civilization, are the
most interesting portion of a county's histor3\

It is related in one of his biographies, that when William Penn
sailed on his return voyage to England, in 1684, the province was
divided into twenty-two townships ; but this cannot refer to Bucks
county, for her boundaries were not yet flxed, nor were townships
laid out until eight years afterward.    There is evidence that Wil-