HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
 

441
 

CHAPTER  XXVII.
 

MI LFORD.
 

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Concluding group.—Early names.—First township settled by Germans.—Ask natu¬
ralization.—Their language.—Mum.—Change of names.—Germans aggressive.—
Churches and schools.—Upper and Lower Milford.—Early settlers.—Jacob
ShellV.—Petition for township.—Names of land-owners.—Township allowed.—
Name desired.—George Wonsidler.—Michael Musselman.—Old stone house.—
Land turtle.—German names in 1749.—Ulrieh Spinner.—The Hubers.—Opening
of roads.—" Milford rebellion."—John Fries.—Henry Simmons.—EtFort to annex
Milford to Lehigh.—Spinnersville, Trumbauersville et al.—Lower Milford
church.—Sehuetz's Lutheran church.—Mennonite churches.—Striekler's grave¬
yard.—Fine land.—Population.

Milford is the first township of our last, and concluding, group
which includes all the remaining townships in Bucks, and those of
Northampton and Lehigh organized prior to 1752.

Settlers were on our north-west border in Philadelphia, now
Montgomery, county before 1730, finding their way into this distant
wilderness up the valley oftlie Perkiomen. Among the land-holders
in Hanover township, Montgomery county, in 1734 w^ere those bear¬
ing the names of Melchior Hoch, Samuel Musselman, John Linder-
man, Peter Lauer, Balthazer Iluth, Andrew Kepler, Jacob Hoch,
Jacob Bechtel, Ludwig Bitting, or Pitting, Jacob Heistandt, Phih'p
Kneclit,  Henry Bitting, Barnabas Tothero,   George  Roudenbush,