EARLY LIFE IN BUCKS COUNTY
The early settlers did not raise much for sale except wheat, which initially had to be carried to Bristol until closer mills were erected. Land was so cheap that there was very little motive for its accumulation. The widow of Wrightstown’s first settler, John Chapman, gave 100 acres of land to William Smith for an old gray mare. They were so careless were they about land, that nearly 150 acres were actually surveyed off instead of 100. For the first decades clearing land, raising food, making their clothing and erecting buildings dominated the settlers’ lives. On May 13, 1701 George Haworth wrote a letter home to England describing Bucks County. “And as for the land” he wrote, “there is both good and bad, both hills and also vales, and the common product of the land is Wheat, Rye, Barley, Oats, Beans, Peas, Buckwheat, Indian Corn, Apples, Cider, Peaches and Cherries; and cattle, and horse, there is plenty [?]of hogs and there is sheep: of victuals there is plenty and good, all over the country as far as I know. There is fishes and fowls in plenty, and this last winter there was a great snow, and some got store of Deer 8 or 10 in a week’s time, and what Varmints we have as wolves, I have seen some, but they have not hurt me, though I have been neare them: There is a few panthers and bears they hurt nobody, as I know of; and land is dearer than it was, when we first came. There is several sort of grapes, strawberries, mulberries, whimberries, but they grow upon stalks 3 or 4 feet high. There is many sorts of wood, as Black Red and White Oaks, and many other sorts, as the Chestnut and Walnut. We have Turkey, wild in the woods, Pheasants, Partridges, with many other sorts of birds of divers[e] colors, and strange colors and notes”.