HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
 

565
 

CHAPTER  XXXVI,
 

SPRINGFIELD
 

IT^rS.
 

An extreme northern township.—Koute of first settlers.—Earliest purehase,—Wil¬
liam Bryan, Stephen Twining, George Bachman, John Briggs.—Moldavia.—
Names of settlers in 1743.—Home homestead.—Reverend A. R. Home.—Town¬
ship organized.—Schuggenhaus.—Lottery lands.—Stephen Twining, Abraham
Keazer.—First grist-mill.—Mills of Funk and Houpt.—Springfield church and
pastors,—Mennonite congregations.—Zion Hill church.—Old school-house.—
Springfield Friends.—Roads.—Tillages.—Springtown et al,—Old tavern at
Stony Point.—Buckwampum.—Population.—Red clover introduced.—Area.

Springfield, one of our extreme northern townships, and bor¬
dering on Northampton and Lehigh counties, is inhabited almost
exclusively by Germans. AVith the exceptions of Durham and
Haycock, it Avas the last of the original townships to be organized.

Probably the earliest settlers in Springfield found their way to it
up the valley of Durham creek, which rises in the interior of the
township. The settlement about Durham furnace was the first per¬
manent inroad on the Avilderness of that section of the county, for,
as the river aiforded open communication AAdth Philadelphia and the
country below^, it was the most accessible route of immigration.
Durham was an English settlement, and the first purchasers of land
in Si^ringfield were of the same race.    Some English settlers reached