THE Early Years

Long before Wm. Penn's famous treaty with the American aboriginals we call "Indians," European settlers explored the wilds of what is now known as Bucks County and made their homes here. The trickle which started some years after Columbus made his startling "discovery" increased with each successive expedition to America. These were the transients who explored for wealth, for curiosity, or for adventure. Here was a wide wilderness, an  interminable, great forest; no reads dissected its vastness and only the eternal meanderings of its streams interrupted the smooth contours of great forest lands. Lower Bucks County was much the same as the rest of the country, a few faint Indian trails and an occasional Indian village being the only signs of human habitation. Game was abundant; through what is now your living room once roamed deer, elk, panther, fox, lynx. In the not too distant Delaware River, unpolluted then by "progress," shad, bass, and pickerel were plentiful and it is recorded that, even as late as the 1850's, whales, sharks, and seal were seen in the Philadelphia vicinity. In the skies above, wild geese, turkey, pheasant (then known as the hazel hen), the majestic eagle, the now extinct passenger pigeon, all crossed and criss-crossed in great numbers.

The early transients of this area exist only in Indian folklore though there are a few faint hints of their identity in recorded history. The first settlers learned from the Indians that, many years before, white men had ascended the Delaware and worked a copper mine in the vicinity of Bowman's Hill. This mine was rediscovered in the early 1800's and gives a degree of proof to the legend. Certain evidence leads us to believe that these people were Swedes and may have been responsible for the later concentration of Swedes along the Delaware areas.

Those who followed later were the hard core of the present population, many driven here because of religious and political persecution in their European homelands. Others settled here by virtue of patents issued by Sir Edmund Andros, who became Governor of New York in 1674. These were "settlers" in the true sense of the word, clearing the land and building permanent homes, churches, schools, and trading centers; these were the builders of communities. In this they were assisted by the friendly Delaware Indians.

Far too little credit has been given the Indians in the development of a civilization which was eventually to destroy their own. The Lenni Lenapes, as they were known, consisted of a number of tribes; the Turtle tribe being indigent to the local area. In spite of later incidents, justly brought about by the sight of their lands being engorged by the greedy whites, they were basically a friendly tribe in contrast to the warlike Sioux of the midwest plains. During the early years of settlement, during the period of the clearing of the lands for farming, food was scarce and the whites had little to offer in trade for staples during the winter months. There are, in family legends and in recorded history, many stories of the hospitality and generosity of the local "savages" who supplied the means of existence to the pioneers during their frequent early periods of hardship. Watson, in his annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, sums up the situation very clearly in saying that "-the difference [between the early settlers and the Indians] in many respects was not great; when to live was the utmost hope, and to enjoy a bare sufficiency, the greatest luxury."

Thus, when Wm. Penn began, in 1682, to organize his "New Deal" in government in the new country, he had the nucleus of what was later to become one of the most solid and prosperous centers of population, in the country. Already was formed the spirit and substance of "-government of the people, by the people, and for the people," although at that time, the laws of these scattered pioneers were a simplified form of British law with overtones of democracy and Biblical teachings. In a raw and unknown world, the basic concept of law became the Golden Rule and most of the "laws," though unwritten, were strictly adhered to in the policies of a world where authority was not always assigned, but rather assumed, by those who qualifications of leader-ship made them eligible. When Penn appeared on the scene with his innate sense of justice - fathered both by his own character and the persecution of his "Quakers" in Europe - and his great capacity for organization, the old rule changed and order began to appear in the laws of the land. The fact that Penn possessed, through the King of England, proprietary rights to the land no doubt helped in his position; but his inherent friendliness and high moral character endeared him, not only to his tenant heirs, but to the Indians, who spoke of him affectionately as "Brother Onas" - their word for pen, or quill. Penn made the Indians realize from the very start that he intended to deal justly with them and it is to his credit that, as long as he lived, his word was respected even more by the Indians than by his own people. It is sad that those who followed in his footsteps did not attempt to match his stride.

On June 23, 1683, William Penn bought from the Lenni Lenapes the land "-lying between the Pennepack and Neshomamic creeks and all upon the Neshomamic creeks and backward, of the same, and to run two days journey with a horse into the country." Warminster Township was in this area. General Davis, in his History of Bucks County says "-the surface of the township is generally level, with but little broken or untillable land. There is no better land in the county than the plains of Warminster which extend eastward to the hills of Neshaminy-."

At the first Provincial Assembly held in Philadelphia, Bucks, and Chester counties were assigned. There were no legal subdivisions in the county before 1692, although for the convenience of collecting taxes and for other municipal purposes, limits and names had already been unofficially given to many settlements. Southampton and Warminster were so called as early as 1685 by the provincial council in drawing up the county borders. The Bucks County court, in 1692, formed the township limits throughout the county for the purpose of more convenient tax collecting. This was done by a jury which met at the Neshaminy Meeting House in Middletown, situated within a mile of what is now known as Langhorne. The settled parts of the county were divided into five townships, four others being mentioned but not returned as geographical subdivisions. For purposes of municipal administration, our Township was described as "-Southampton and the lands about it, with Warminster, one."

In 1703, the court recognized Southampton as a township in itself and it was permitted to elect its own highway supervisor. In March, 1711, Southampton petitioned the court to be separated completely from Warminster in county assessments and tax collections. The petition was granted and the separation became official. For some reason, which has been lost over the years, Southampton in 1712, again petitioned that it be allowed to "remain a township in its entirety." This has led to some confusion as to the actual date of separation. McReynolds, in his "Place Names in Bucks County" gives the date 1712. Davis' History of Bucks County states: "The two (Warminster and Southampton) elected but one constable and overseer for several years, and they were not entirely separated in their municipal administration until about 1712." Other sources are at variance as to the date when each became "a township in its own right," but it is generally conceded that the first petition on the part of Southampton was made and granted in 1711.

Warminster was named after a small town in County Wiltshire, at the western extremity of Salisbury Plain, England. The name is of Saxon origin - WAR meaning a fortress and MINSTER meaning a church of a monastery.