580
 

HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY,
 

CHAPTER   XXXVII.
 

SMITHFIELD;   ALLEN;   MOUNT   BETHEL;   MOORE;   EASTON.
 

IT-^e    TO
 

Tlie Minisink flats.—Question of settlement.—^Copper discovered,—First visit of a
white man.—Earliest settlers.—The Mine road.— Visit of Nicholas Scull.—
Samuel De Pui.—Condition of settlements.—Visit of John Lukens.—What he
saw and learned.—Earliest mention of Minisink in county records.—Daniel
Brodhead.—Smithfield church.—Dutch churches.—First attempt to organize
Smithfield township.—Names of petitioners.—Indian graveyard.—Township
now divided.—Forks of Delaware.—Nathaniel Irish^ Craig, and Hunter.—
Allen: William Allen first land-owner.—A Presbyterian settlement.—Peti¬
tioners for township.—Conflicting accounts.—Settlers ask for wagon roads.—Besi-
dence of the Craigs.—Mount Bethel : Hunter's colony.—Petition for a town¬
ship.—The names.—David and .John Brainard and their labors.—MooRE:
Was settled early.—The Petersville church.—Township organized.—Easton :
The first owner of site.—David Martin first settler.—Grant of ferry.—Town laid
out.—William Parsons.—First house.—Population in December, 1752.—Louis
Gordon.—Piiillipsburg.—The Arndts.
 

The earliest settlement in Bucks county, north of the Lehigh,
w^as made in Smithfield toAvnship, now in Monroe county.

It is an unsettled question.Avhether the upper, or loAver, DelaAvare
Avas first settled by Europeans, and it is even claimed that the Mini-
sink flats Avere peopled before the fertile meadoAVs of Falls. In
1694, and possibly earlier, the adventurous Hollanders penetrated
the Avilderness south-Avest of the Hudson as far as the Delaw^are,
where copper  was discovered, and some of it shipped to Holland.