HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
 

267
 

CHAPTER   XVII
 

BUCKI NGH AM.
 

ITOS.
 

The empire township.—Vale of Lahaska.—Surface broken.—Durham and York
roads.—Origin of name.—First settlers.—Amor, Paul and Samuel Preston.—
—James Streater and Richard Parsons.—The West and Reynolds tracts.—
Robert Smith.—Windy bush.—Thomas Canby,—William Cooper.—Thomas
Bye.—Edward Hartly.—The Paxson family.—The Watsons.—John Watson,
the surveyor.—Matthew Hughes and others.—Joseph Fell.—Jesse Fell burns
hard coal in a grate.—The Carvers.—Meetings for worship.—Meeting-house
built.—Burned down.—Used as hospital.—Births, deaths, marriages.—Ann
Moore.—Earliest boundary.—Old map.—The Idens.—Doctor John Wilson.—
Schools.—Amos Austin Hughes.—Justice Cox.—Doctor Cernea.—Buckingham
library.—Nail factory.—Big Ben.—James Jamison.—The villages.—Population.
—Caves and sink holes.—African church.—William Simpson.—Scythe and ax
factory.—Catching pigeons.
 

The central location of Buckingham, its productive soil, valuable
quarries of limestone, its wealth, intelligence, population, and area,
eighteen thousand four hundred and eighty-eight acres, entitle it to
be considered the empire township of the county. The stream of
immigration that brought settlers into the woods of Wrightstown
carried them up to the   "Great  mountain,"i  and  they gradually

1 Called by the Indians Lahaskekee. Samuel Preston said the Indian name was
"Laskeek." In an old paper it is written ''Lelioskuk" hill. In 1S15 it was called,
by some, "Lackawissa."