HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
 

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CHAPTER  XX.
 

BRISTOL   B OROUGH.
 

ITSO.
 

One of the oldest towns in the state.—Its site.—Market town petitioned for.—
Lot-owners.—Incorporated.—Fairs to be held.—Bristol in 1708.—In 175(3.—
Captain Graydon.—First county seat.—Friends' meeting.—Work-house.—Saint
James' church.—The Burtons.—De Normandies.—Charles Bessonett.—The Wil¬
liamses.—British troops billeted.—Attacked by refugees.—James Thornton.—
The Bristol of to-day.—Industrial establishments and churches.—Captain Weljb.
—Lodges and societies.—The bank.—Ground broken for canal.—Old grave.—
Home for aged gentlewomen.—Major and Mrs. Lenox.—Its buildings.—Bath
springs.—Thomas A. Cooper.—Taxables and population.

Bristol, the oldest town in the county, and one of the oldest in
the state, occupies an eligible situation on the west bank of the
Delaware, fronting nearly a mde on the river, with fifteen feet of
water in the channel. A settlement at this point naturally followed
the establishment of a ferry across the river to Burlington, and at
an early day a road was laid out from the King's highway down to

the landing.

The site of Bristol is on the grant of two hundred and forty acres
by Sir Edmund Andros to Samuel Clift, in 1681, who sold fifty
acres to Bichard Dungworth, shxty to Walter Pomeroy, and one
hundred to Mor^^an Drewitt.    The remainhig thirty acres Clif' left