Judge Henry Wynkoop (1737-1816), one of the leading figures in Bucks County during the Revolution. He was a Justice of the Peace for several years before the war, and then was instrumental in organizing the Revolutionary movement at the local level. When Judge Gilbert Hicks fled to join the British, Wynkoop succeeded him as President Judge.

    Public life in Bucks County on the eve of the Revolution was dominated by a relatively small group of well-established political figures. Two of the most prominent of this group, Gilbert Hicks and Joseph Galloway, chose to be loyal to the Crown, and their very public defections from the revolutionary struggle created a negative image for Bucks County at the time, an image that has remained to give the impression that Bucks was a land of conservative folk who had to be dragged reluctantly into the war.
    Surely, there were other loyalists in the county, some active and some passive. The career of the Doane outlaws provides a racy spectacle of militant, guerilla Toryism. There was also a large element of the county's population that forsook revolutionary activity, not out of any particular love for King George III, but because their religious beliefs as Quakers or Mennonites made involvement in any military activity unacceptable.
    On the other hand, there was an effective organization in support of the Revolution, with experienced and influential leaders who were unable to galvanize a significant portion of the county's population to support the struggle.
    In the course of the revolutionary period, no consensus

7

was reached in Bucks County, just as no consensus occurred in other counties or other colonies. In fact, the experience of the struggle for independence served to polarize the population, and tensions remained high until some time after the war was over. The issues on which the movement was based may have seemed far away from the lives of Bucks County's rural farmers and craftsmen.
    The county's leaders, no matter what their position, no doubt recognized that they could not persuade all of the people to one attitude, and the political reality was directed at engineering the greatest amount of active support for the movement. Clearly, the Revolution did not mean a complete turnover from the old regime to a totally new one with a completely new cast of characters. Some political figures went out of the picture altogether, as Hicks and Galloway did so prominently. Many simply retired from politics rather than get involved in the struggle. Many others, who had little or no political experience before the movement began, entered the realm of public affairs for the first time.
    But the most important figures of all were those who had been active in public affairs for years before the revolutionary movement began, and who took up the cause and gave their vigorous support to the new order.

    Before examining the local political leaders in detail, a summary of the main events in Pennsylvania's early revolutionary movement, with emphasis on Bucks County's part in it, might be helpful.
    The pattern of organization that characterized the development of the revolutionary movement in Pennsylvania and other colonies was one of committees and special conventions that operated outside the constitutional government apparatus. In Pennsylvania, especially, the provincial legislature tended to avoid any action that would strengthen the opposition to British policy, and so those who wanted the province to join in the resistance had to work through other means, namely the committee-and-convention system. [1]
    Most of this activity took place in Philadelphia, and there is no evidence that there were any committees organized in Bucks County before 1774, though many Bucks Countians must have been well aware of events in the city. As the rumblings of the Revolution came close to the county, a significant portion of the established political machinery of the county lent its support to the movement to seek redress of the colonies' grievances. In the spring of 1774 Paul Revere brought news of the Boston Port Bill to Philadelphia and other colonial capitals, and the city's Committee of Correspondence launched into action. It encouraged the formation of county committees to send delegates to a convention which would draw up "instructions" for the Provincial Assembly. Those in support of the movement were trying to get a special session of the Assembly called in order to select delegates from the province to the proposed Congress of all the colonies.
    A public meeting was held at Newtown on July 9, 1774, which passed a resolution in favor of the creation of a

Joseph Galloway, Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly for many years and a powerful influence opposed to the movement toward Independence. His home was the estate Trevose in Bucks County.

8

William Rodman, member of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly from 1763 through 1776. He did not take part in Revolutionary activities.

    Who were the men who led this movement in Bucks County? Many were relative newcomers to politics, with little or no background in local public affairs. But some, including several of the most important and influential, were old hands on the local political scene.
    By looking at which of the already established leaders took active parts in the committees and conventions that began to be organized in 1774, and especially at which continued their support after it became clear in 1775 that there would be an armed struggle, it is possible to see a pattern in the kind of leadership that the Revolution had within the county's borders.
    The political structure of Bucks County just before the war might be analyzed in terms of three elements: the delegation that the county sent to the Provincial Assembly, the occupants of the county's row offices, and the Justices of the Peace who formed the county courts.
    As one of Pennsylvania's three original counties, Bucks enjoyed representation by eight members of the Provincial Assembly, all of whom were chosen annually in elections that took place each October at the county seat. Counties that were created after the original three, such as Northampton, which was formed in 1752 from the northern part of Bucks County, had only two representatives in the Assembly. This arrangement assured that the old power structure in the first three counties continued to dominate the province's politics. The idea of making representation proportionate to population had no place in the system.
    William Rodman (1720-1794) was Bucks County's senior Assemblyman, having been first elected in 1763. Before that he had served as a Justice of the Peace from 1752 to 1757. The Rodmans were Quakers, but William had been disowned some time prior to the Revolution for continuing to keep slaves after that practice had been disavowed by the Society of Friends. Though he was one of the more powerful men in the Assembly, he did not get involved in the committee structure that began in 1774 to explore the issues that caused contention with England, and when the old Assembly went out of existence in 1776, Rodman retired from public life. [6]
    Bucks County's most famous politician by far was Joseph Galloway (1731-1803), who in a sense had seniority over William Rodman, since his membership in the

9

The tavern room at the General Greene Inn, Buckingham, as it was restored in the early 20th century. Kept by John Bogart from 1772 through 1777, it was the site of the meetings of the Bucks County Committee of Observation and Inspection from July 1775 onwards.

10

The Bucks County Court Buildings at Newtown, which was the county seat of Bucks County from 1726 to 1813, drawn by Thaddeus S. Kenderdine. The county jail is at left, the treasury building in the center, and the courthouse is to the right. Bucks County's first public meeting to consider grievances against Great Britain was held here on July 9, 1774.

11

treason by the revolutionary government of Pennsylvania, and his goods were seized and sold. [13]
    Biles' predecessor as sheriff, Richard Gibbs (1723-1798), was an active supporter of the revolutionary effort, joined the Bensalem Associators in 1775, and among other offices served as one of the Commissioners to Seize the Personal Effects of Traitors appointed on October 21, 1777, so he may have had the peculiar task of confiscating the property of his successor as sheriff. [14]
    The county coroner elected in 1773, who served until the end of the colonial government, was George Fell of Buckingham. He took no part in committee activities, and was a Non-Associator in 1775. He is not known to have held any other political positions, and he died in July 1777 at the age of 48. [15]
    Fell's predecessor as coroner, from 1768 to 1773, was James Wallace of Warwick Township. Wallace became a staunch supporter of the committee movement. He was one of the seven delegates in July 1774 to the Provincial Convention. That December he was elected to the Bucks Committee, and he was re-elected the following year. He was also a delegate to the Provincial Conference in June 1776. He might have gone on to a more extensive career in the new regime in Bucks County, but he died in 1778. [16]
    The Commissioners in office in the years preceding the Revolution were all Quakers but one, and when the conflict came most either retired completely from public life, or kept a low profile. Thomas Foulke of Richland (elected in 1769) and John Wilkinson of Wrightstown (elected in 1770) were both Quakers, and at first both were chosen to the Bucks Committee, and then both withdrew on pacifist principles, though Wilkinson later changed his mind and became an active supporter of the Revolution, even though it cost him his membership in the meeting. [17] David Twining of Newtown was elected Commissioner in 1771. He was likewise a Quaker, and was elected to the Bucks Committee in December 1774, but he does not seem to have taken an active role. Theophilus Foulke (Thomas' brother) was elected in 1772 and seems not to have taken part in politics after he left office in 1775, although he is said to have supported the revolutionary cause and was disowned for it by Richland Meeting. [18]
    Paul Preston of Buckingham, elected in 1773, was still another Quaker, and was the man whose successor should have been chosen in the election of October 1776, but that election was suppressed. He had served as a county treasurer from 1768 to 1772, and was clerk of Buckingham Friends Meeting from 1755 to 1777. He was known as a mathematician and linguist, and served as a surveyor and court translator of German. Preston retired to private life and devoted his time to literary pursuits, including a translation of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, which was published posthumously at Doylestown in 18O8. [19]
    1774 saw the election of Gilbert Hicks as Commissioner. Hicks was already the principal judge of the county courts, and will be dealt with in more detail below. Although he initially presided over meetings that led to revolutionary organization, his later actions led him to have to flee from Pennsylvania.
    The last County Commissioner elected under the old regime, in 1775, was James Chapman of Richland Township. He had been elected the year before to the Bucks Committee, at age 27, and served one year. Though he left the committee, he was appointed in July 1776 to a board that was responsible for giving allowances to the distressed families of soldiers in Springfield Township. Apparently this activity did not conflict with his membership in the Friends meeting, and he went on to a long career as a surveyor and scrivener, though his activity in revolutionary politics was limited. [20]
    The positions of Clerk of the Courts, Register of Wills and Recorder of Deeds, had been filled since 1772 by Isaac Hicks, the son of Judge Gilbert Hicks, and he was only about 25 years old when he took over the posts. In 1774 he was included on the new list of Justices of the Peace as well. (He succeeded William Hicks, a kinsman, in all of these posts. William died in 1772.) Isaac sided with the Non-Associators of Newtown in 1775, and avoided any activities that had to do with the move toward Revolution. He seems to have shared his father's misgivings about the direction that public affairs were taking. He resigned his commissions about September 1776, a month before his father read General Howe's proclamation and was forced to become a refugee. Though Isaac did not have to flee, he was distrusted and had to lie low in order to remain neutral in the conflict. In February 1777, the Pennsylvania Council of Safety instructed Joseph Hart, Henry Wynkoop and Richard Gibbs to go to Hicks' house and take possession of all the public records. Not long afterwards, Hicks was placed under a bond of two thousand pounds not to act or speak against the United States, and he was served notice that he had to be prepared to appear before the Supreme Executive Council at any time. Hicks probably meant no treason, and simply weathered out the Revolution without taking any part. But his talents were valuable enough that they could not be ignored forever. Long afterward, he returned to public life in 1789 as County Surveyor, and later held other offices, including a return to the post of Justice of the Peace in 1794. He died in 1836 at the age of 89. He is now remembered most in history as the father of the painter Edward Hicks. [21]

    The Justices of the Peace, who individually had jurisdiction over minor cases and who met four times a year to form the county courts, were appointed by the Governor. In practice, a new panel was appointed as a group every few years, with occasional single appointments taking place in between. The last commission before the Revolution was one of twenty Justices appointed by Governor John Penn on April 9, 1774. Sixteen of the twenty were reappointments of men who had been included in the previous commission on May 23, 1770. Two were confirmations of interim appointments, and two of the Justices were new to the bench. [22]

12

    One of the Justices, Jacob Bogart (1723-1777) of Solesbury Township, who had been first appointed in 1761, moved out of the county in 1774. He settled in Bridgewater, New Jersey, where he took an active part in the revolutionary movement there, serving as a Justice of the Peace, Assemblyman, and in other offices. His nephew was John Bogart, owner of the tavern in Buckingham where many of the meetings of the Bucks Committee met. [23]
    The chief judge of the county courts was Gilbert Hicks, who had been born on Long Island in 1720 and had married into the prestigious Rodman family that owned large tracts of land in Bucks County. (William Rodman, the influential Assemblyman, was the first cousin of Hicks' wife.) Hicks and his family settled about 1747 on a 3OO-acre tract in Bensalem that came as his wife's portion of her father's estate. Though not a Quaker himself, Hicks rose quickly in favor in the Quaker-dominated politics of Bucks County. Preferring public life to farming, he was appointed by the governor as a Justice of the Peace in 1752. In that post he remained until the Revolution, and from June 1761 he was consistently listed first among his colleagues in the Quarter Sessions dockets, indicating that he was functioning as chief justice of the court. Soon he gave up farming altogether, sold the estate in Bensalem, and bought a group of houses and lots at the Four Lane Ends (now Langhorne) in 1763, including the inn that dominated the crossroads. [24]
    When word came in 1774 from the radical leaders in Philadelphia that each county should choose delegates to a convention to respond to the latest provocation, the Boston Port Bill, it seemed only logical that so prominent a man as Hicks should chair the meeting, and so it was. But Hicks seems to have been a reluctant leader. He did not become active in the committee-and-convention movement, though he was elected to the Bucks Committee for Middletown in the spring of 1776. How neutral he remained at first is not certain, but in the fall of 1776 he made the decisive step of reading from the courthouse steps the proclamation of General Howe that offered pardon to anyone who would surrender at that time. By then the Revolution had advanced too far for the public reading of such a document to be tolerated, and Hicks had to flee for his life, never to return to Bucks County. [25] Thus ended the career of a man who had once been the County's most respected jurist.
    John Jemison or Jamison (1710-1776) of Milford Township had a career as a Justice of the Peace that stretched back to 1746, and although he was not reappointed in 1749, he was named again to the bench in 1752. He was elected to the Bucks Committee in December 1774 and served one year. His successor, Andrew Trumbower of Milford, took his seat in January 1776. Jemison may have stepped down due to age or infirmity, for he died in the summer of 1776, within days of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, of which he would probably have approved. [26]
    Perhaps the oldest man on the bench was Richard Walker of Warrington, who had first been commissioned as a Justice of the Peace in 1749. A Presbyterian who belonged to the church at Neshaminy, he was about 72 years old in 1774. He had been captain of a company of Associators from Bucks County in the French and Indian war in 1747-48, so he had no scruples about taking arms. (At least three men who were captains of companies in 1747 were made Justices in 1749: Alexander Graydon, Langhorne Biles, and Walker. Another captain, Simon Butler, was already a Justice. All these men were dead before the time of the Revolution.) Walker had also served in the Assembly in the 1740's and 1750's. Though he was now too old for military service, he served on the Bucks Committee from December 1774 and was re-elected in December 1775. Thereafter he seems not to have been active in public affairs, no doubt because of his age, but he had supported the effort at a critical time. He died in 1791 at the age of 89 years. [27]
    Second only to Gilbert Hicks in his position on the bench was Joseph Hart (1715-1788) of Warminster, one of the best-known men in the county, who, with his patrician background and his vigorous support of the revolutionary movement, must surely have served as the father figure of the revolutionaries in Bucks County. His father, also named Joseph, who died in 1763, had been sheriff, coroner, and Justice of the Peace during his own long career. The younger Joseph had military service both in 1748 as an ensign and in 1756 as captain of a company in the French and Indian War. In between, he was elected sheriff in 1749, and in 1757 was commissioned a Justice of the Peace. When the resistance movement against England began to snowball in 1774, Hart was one of the delegates to the Provincial Convention on July 15. He was elected to the Bucks committee in December 1774 and was chosen as its chairman when it met in January 1775. When the Associators were organized the following summer, he was first on the list for Warminster Township, suggesting that he may have been its captain. In April 1776 he became Colonel of the Second Battalion of Bucks County Associators.
    Hart, now aged 60, took a major part in the Provincial Conference in June 1776 that brought forth the most radical statements that had yet been offered in the colony. He was vice-president of the Conference, and helped guide the vital resolutions through the necessary votes.
    Hart was also a member of the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention that met beginning on July 16, 1776. However, military obligations interfered to pull him away from this vital service. By the end of the month he was preparing to march off to active service in Bucks County's regiment of the Flying Camp. More active service followed in the December campaign of 1776, and he was later elected to the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council, served as County Lieutenant, and he continued as a Justice on the local Courts after the change of Pennsylvania constitutions.
    After being so instrumental in the changes that affected his country and his county so profoundly, he died on February 25, 1788, in the same house that he had been born in.
    He was one of the pivotal figures in making the Revolu-

13

tion work in Bucks County and his influence extended beyond just Bucks County, particularly when he served on the Provincial Conference of 1776 and in other important posts in the new state. [28]
    Dr. John Abraham Denormandie (1721-1805) of Bristol was a prominent physician, the promoter of the Bristol Bath Springs, and a member of the American Philosophical Society. He was appointed to the courts in 1761, and succeeded his father, also named John Abraham Denormandie, who had been a Justice for many years and who died in 1757. He does not seem to have taken a prominent part in committee politics. Though he was reappointed in 1774, he apparently resigned his commission as Justice, since he intended to return to Geneva, where he was a Burgher and Citizen, and as far as the Revolution was concerned, he considered himself an alien to both the contending forces. (The last Court of Quarter Sessions which he is recorded to have attended was that of March 1772. Prior to March 1769 his attendance was fairly regular.) However, it also seems that he was in charge of a hospital for wounded American soldiers at Bristol in January 1777. [29]
    Another elder with a long term of service on the bench was Jonathan Ingham of Solebury. He was active in county politics at least by 1753, when he was elected to the Assembly for the first of three consecutive terms, after which he was elected once again in 1759. He was chosen a County Commissioner in 1758. His first commission as Justice followed in 1761. Ingham was elected to the Bucks Committee in December 1774, but was one of the group of Quakers who resigned in the summer of 1775 because of their pacifist principles. Thereafter he stayed out of public life. He was described as a "narrow sectarian," and is said to have sent one of his sons to a hospital for lunatics because of what he thought were heretical ideas. His other two sons, according to family tradition, did not meet his stiff requirements either, and his son Jonathan was bold enough to join the Associators in 1775. The elder Jonathan remained aloof from politics until his death in 1799. [30]
    Joseph Kirkbride (1731-1803) of Falls Township, came from an old county family as prestigious as that of Joseph Hart, but he was clearly more of a rebel by nature. He inherited substantial land and wealth. He too took part in the French and Indian War, and was disowned by Falls Meeting in 1756. Subsequently he was elected to the Assembly in 1758, but served only one year. He was commissioned a Justice in 1760, was removed in 1761, but was then appointed permanently in 1764. He too was a delegate to the Pennsylvania Convention of July 1774, and was elected to the Bucks Committee that December.
    When the Associators were organized in the summer of 1775, Kirkbride became Colonel of the First Battalion, which took in all of lower Bucks County. A year later, he was a delegate to the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention. He continued in a very active role in the conflict, and became a close friend of the radical pamphleteer Thomas Paine. Even when his house was burned in a British raid

Minutes of the public meeting of July 9, 1774, which selected delegates to the Provincial Convention of July 15, 1774. Chairman of the meeting was Judge Gilbert Hicks, who later was considered a traitor for reading General Howe's proclamation offering pardon to rebels who would lay down their arms. Hicks had to flee the county, never to return.

14

were organized in the summer of 1775, and subsequently he was active in the militia. [32]
    Robert Patterson of Tinicum Township, a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian and a member of the church at Red Hill, had been a Justice since 1764. He was elected to the Bucks Committee in December 1774 and re-elected a year later. He was one of the very few Justices who continued on the court after the Revolution had been effected, and was commissioned again on July 25, 1777. He was also captain of a company of Bucks County militia that was in service in the fall of 1781. [33]
    John Wilkinson was one man for whom the decisions required by the approach of revolution were particularly difficult. He had been involved in local politics for some twenty years, for he had been elected County Commissioner in 1755, and was voted into the Assembly in 1761, where he served two terms. He was appointed a Justice in 1764, and was elected Commissioner again in 1770. At first he was quite active in committee work in 1774, and was a representative at the Provincial Convention on July 15. He was elected to the Bucks Committee that December, and to the smaller Committee of Correspondence in January 1775. Then, when it became evident that a military organization had to be formed, he followed his Quaker beliefs and resigned from the committee in the summer of 1775. Over the next year he had a change of heart, and decided to re-enter the political arena in spite of the meeting's opposition. He served as a delegate to the important Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1776. Predictably, his actions were reported to Wrightstown meeting in December 1776. At first he replied that he had no desire to continue as a member, later he softened and said he would quit his political posts, but finally, after more than a year of the meeting's careful deliberations and efforts to keep so prominent a member on its rolls, he was disowned. Though it appears that he never actually had military service, he did serve as a County Commissioner once again in 1778, making it clear that he did take an active part in the new political regime before his death in 1782. [34]
    Another Justice of the county courts who took a major role in the Revolution was Henry Wynkoop (1737-1816) of Northampton Township. He had spent two terms in the Assembly in 1760 and 1761 before being appointed a Justice in 1764. He too was a delegate to the Provincial Convention in July 1774, and was elected to the Bucks Committee in December, where he served as the committee's treasurer. He joined the Northampton Associators in the summer of 1775 as a private, but his principal contributions were to be not in the military field, but in government and on the courts. He was another one of the Bucks County delegates to the Provincial Conference of June 1776. He was not a member of the Constitutional Convention, but was named as one of the members of Pennsylvania's Council of Safety that same year. When the county courts got back in operation, Wynkoop took the place that had been vacated by Gilbert Hicks and presided over the courts for many years. He filled many other offices, and was elected as a member of the first Congress of the United States in 1789. His career was one of the most distinguished in all of Bucks County's history, and his long record of public service spanning the Revolutionary era was an important element in preserving continuity in a time of radical change. [35]
    John Kidd (1721?-1791) of Bensalem was a relative newcomer to Bucks County. He had had a long career as a merchant in Philadelphia, and was a member of the American Philosophical Society. He had been captain of a company of Philadelphia militia in 1756, during the French and Indian War. He bought an estate in Bensalem from Thomas

The Black Bear Tavern, Richboro, as it appeared in the 19th century. It was kept by Richard Leedom from 1762 through 1796, and the Bucks County Committee of Observation and Inspection met here on May 8, 1775. The building no longer stands.

The Hart Homestead in Warminster Township, built in 1750. This was the home of Joseph Hart, one of the outstanding leaders of the Revolution in Bucks County. A Justice of the Peace for several years prior to the break from England, he was vice-chairman of the Provincial Conference in June 1776 that voted in favor of a Declaration of Independence.

16

"Vredens Hof," the home of Judge Henry Wynkoop in Northampton Township. The oldest section was built by Henry's father Nicholas Wynkoop in 1739. The House was destroyed by fire in 1911.

    It seems clear that there was a definite pattern in Bucks County as to where in the existing political power structure the principal support for the revolutionary movement came from. The county's delegation to the old Provincial Assembly was, like those of other counties, very conservative and interested mainly in keeping the status quo, fearful that any mass uprising against British policies, whether violent or not at first, would get out of hand and result in chaos. The few steps that the Assembly took toward fostering the formation of the Continental Congress only came about under considerable pressure from outside.
    Bucks County's row offices were occupied as well by men who either opposed the revolution because of religious scruples, or opposed any political change at all, or both.
    The main source of leadership that brought Bucks County into the struggle was the bench. Though the decision was far from unanimous, the county's boldest new leaders came from the courts.
    Of the seven delegates chosen as delegates to the Provincial Convention at Bucks County's first public meeting to address the issues of the day on July 9, 1774, five were Justices of the Peace (Hart, Kidd, Kirkbride, Wilkinson and Wynkoop). None were Assemblymen. (Ironically, the representatives at the Convention from other counties included eleven Assemblymen, a quarter of the House for which the Convention was supposed to draw up instructions. This Convention has been described as "the high point of legislator participation in Pennsylvania's Revolutionary conventions.") [43] Of the twenty-nine men elected to form Bucks County's first Committee of Observation and Inspection that December, ten were Justices. The electors chose only one sitting Assemblyman, Joseph Galloway. He probably did not thank them for the favor.
    In Bucks County's delegation to the Provincial Conference in June 1776 (the one that resolved in favor of a declaration of independence), three of the five members were Justices (Hart, Kidd and Wynkoop). In the county's delegation to the Constitutional Convention a few weeks later three of the eight members were Justices (Hart, Kirkbride and Wilkinson). But by this time support for the revolutionary movement was spreading, and new characters were entering the political arena as older men who did not want to participate retired to their farms.
    What made so many of the Justices of the Peace decide to revolt and go to war? The answer must be to some extent speculative, since none of them left any body of papers that would indicate the motives that led to their individual decisions during this critical period. Yet it may be inferred that they were for the most part men of intelligence, fully aware of the events that were going on up and down the colonies, in touch through relatives, friends and colleagues with the issues that were being raised as the result of the pattern of British colonial policies.
    More particularly, the Justices were devoting much of their energies to the implementation of the English system of justice. The very courts on which they sat were the local manifestation of the venerable apparatus of common law that every English subject was taught to love.
    When Britain's repressive trade policies came to form a pattern that seemed intended to inhibit the economy of the colonies in order to preserve England's prerogatives and monopolies, many Americans saw that they were being treated as something less than true Englishmen. American colonists saw themselves as Englishmen who happened to live in the provinces but who still ought to enjoy all the rights and privileges that they would have in their homeland. The volume of business that came before the county courts surely indicates that the people of Bucks County were exercising their rights under the English common law to the fullest extent. And no one had more opportunity to ponder the ironies of the situation than the Justices themselves.
    Thus, when the time came in 1774 to make hard decisions and organize a resistance movement like those that were already in existence in other colonies, it was men like Joseph Hart, Joseph Kirkbride and Henry Wynkoop who took charge. The decision to take up arms against Great Britain may have been the most important decision ever to come down from the judges who sat on the Bucks County courts.

Notes

    1. A thorough history of the committee movement in Pennsylvania is Richard Alan Ryerson, The Revolution is Now Begun: The Radical Committees of Philadelphia, 1765-1776 (Philadelphia, 1978). [Back]

    2. The minutes of Bucks County's first meeting, and of the later Committee of Observation and Inspection, are printed in "Minutes of the Committee of Safety of Bucks County, Penn-

17

sylvania, 1774-1776," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (PMHB), 15 (1891): 257-290. "Committee of Safety" is a misnomer on the part of W. W. H. Davis, who contributed the text to the magazine. [Back]

    3. Ibid. The records of the companies of Associators, and lists of Non-Associators, are printed in Pennsylvania Archives, Second Series, 14: 143-174, 216-237. [Back]

    4. The minutes of the Provincial Conference are in Pennsylvania Archives, Second Series, 3: 633-665. [Back]

    5. The Minutes of the Constitutional Convention are in Pennsylvania Archives, Third Series, 10: 755-784. [Back]

    6. Charles Henry Jones, Genealogy of the Rodman Family, 1620 to 1886 (Philadelphia, 1886), 30. [Back]

    7. Much has been written about Galloway and his political views. He is the subject of an entry in the Dictionary of American Biography. [Back]

    8. Clarence V. Roberts, Early Friends Families of Upper Bucks (Philadelphia, 1925), 131-133. [Back]

    9. Pennsylvania Archives, 5th series, 5:305. Estate file no. 2205 (Henry Krewson, 1789), Register of Wills Office, Bucks County Courthouse. [Back]

    10. There were two men named Thomas Jenks living at the time, both in Middletown Township, father and son. The father died in 1797 at about 98 years of age. His son was born in 1738 and died in 1799. The son was probably the one who was the Assemblyman. Estate File no. 2719 (Thomas Jenks, 1797) and no. 2892 (Thomas Jenks, 1799), Register of Wills Office, Bucks County Courthouse. [Back]

    11. Fairly accurate lists of the occupants of these offices can be found in J. H. Battle, ed., History of Bucks County (Philadelphia, 1887), 683-691. [Back]

    12. County Government and Archives in Pennsylvania, ed. S. K. Stevens and D. H. Kent (Harrisburg, 1947), 96, 166, 184, 231, 258, 271, 289, 306. [Back]

    13. Pennsylvania Archives, 1st Series, 5: 31-32, 10: 250. [Back]

    14. Helen H. Gemmill, "Richard Gibbs: An Englishman On the Side of the Rebels," Bucks County Historical Society Journal, 1, no. 6 (Fall 1974), 20-36. [Back]

    15. Sarah M. Fell, Genealogy of the Fell Family in America (n.p., 1891), 38. "Memoranda From the Diary of John Dyer of Plumstead, Bucks Co., Pa.," Publications of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, 3 (1906): 46. [Back]

    16. Estate file no. 1549 (James Wallace, 1778), Register of Wills Office, Bucks County Courthouse. [Back]

    17. Roberts, Early Friends Families, 133-34. For Wilkinson, see below, note 34. [Back]

    18. Thomas Jefferson Twining, The Twining Family (Fort Wayne, Ind., 1905), 36. Roberts, Early Friends Families, 134. [Back]

    19. Charles Starne Belsterling, William Preston of NewcastleUpon-Tyne, England and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Allied Families (Philadelphia, 1934), 121-124. [Back]

    20. Roberts, Early Friends Families, 598-599. [Back]

    21. Alice Ford, Edward Hicks; Painter of the Peaceable Kingdom (Philadelphia, 1952), 1-7. [Back]

    22. Frank M. Eastman, Courts and Lawyers of Pennsylvania: A History, 1623 -1923 (New York, 1922), 1:241-246. Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, 10 (Harrisburg, 1852): 162. [Back]

    23. John Albert Bogart, The Bogart Family: Tunis Gysbert Bogaert and His Descendants (n. p., 1959), 153-154. [Back]

    24. Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, 1851), 5: 572-573. The Sessions Dockets of the Bucks County Court of Quarter Sessions are in the Bucks County Archives at the Spruance Library. [Back]

    25. Sarah W. Hicks, "The Life and Expatriation of Judge Gilbert Hicks," The Bucks County Historical Society: Papers Read Before the Society..., 7 (1937): 247-255. [Back]

    26. Roberts, Early Friends Families, 290. [Back]

    27. Pennsylvania Archives, 5th series, 1:18-19. D. K. Turner, History of Neshaminy Presbyterian Church of Warwick... (Philadelphia, 1876), 346. [Back]

    28. Terry A. McNealy, "Bucks County’s Revolutionaries, part II: Joseph Hart," Bucks County Panorama, 18 (March 1976): 22-24, 28-29. National Genealogical Society Quarterly, 65 (1977): 246-247. [Back]

    30. John Hall Ingham, "Sketch of Dr. Jonathan Ingham," A Collection of Papers Read Before the Bucks County Historical Society, 5 (1926): 308. [Back]

    31. Terry A. McNealy, "Bucks County’s Revolutionaries, part III: Joseph Kirkbride," Bucks County Panorama, 18 (July 1976): 24-27. [Back]

    32. Pennsylvania Archives, 5th series, 5: 344, 361, 409. Matthews is buried in the New Britain Baptist Churchyard. [Back]

    33. Battle, History of Bucks County, 629. Patterson’s commission of 1777 is in Bucks County Commission Book 1:4, Recorder of Deeds Office, Bucks County Courthouse. Pennsylvania Archives, 5th series, 5: 433-434. [Back]

    34. "Minutes of Wrightstown Monthly Meeting of Friends, v. 1, 1734-1790," transcribed by C. Arthur Smith, 244-257, Spruance Library. [Back]

    35. John S. Wurts, "Judge Henry Wynkoop," A Collection of Papers Read Before the Bucks County Historical Society. 3 (1909): 197-217. Virginia B. Geyer, "Further Notes on Henry Wynkoop," Bucks County Historical Society Journal, 1, no. 10 (Fall 1976): 1-12. [Back]

    36. "Journal of Sergeant William Young," PMHB 8 (1884): 258n. Philadelphia County Deed Book 1-4: 144, Thomas Barnsley to John Kidd, Sept. 28, 1767 (microfilm at Spruance Library). [Back]

    37. Gregory B. Keen, "The Descendants of Jöran Kyn, the Founder of Upland," PMHB 5 (1881): 457. [Back]

    38. Bucks County Estate File no. 1611 (Hugh Hartshorne, 1779), Register of Wills Office, Bucks County Courthouse. [Back]

    39. "Autobiographical Sketch of the Life of Gen. John Burrows, of Lycoming Co., Penna.," PMHB 34 (1910): 423. [Back]

    40. Thomas Willing Balch, "The Swift Family of Philadelphia," PMHB 30 (1906): 129-150. [Back]

    41. Roberts, Early Friends Families, 133-134. [Back]

    42. Edward R. Barnsley, "The Tory Raid on Newtown in 1778," BCHS Journal, 2, no. 3 (Spring 1978), 92-103. [Back]

    43. Ryerson, Revolution Is Now Begun, 57. [Back]

18

Source:

McNealy, Terry A., "Justice in Revolt: Bucks County Political Leaders, 1774-1776." Mercer Mosaic, (May/June 1985): 7-18

    Terry McNealy is Librarian Emeritus of the Bucks County Historical Society.

    I would like to thank Cynthia D. Earman, cearman@mercermuseum.org, Director of Library Services for the Spruance Library at the Bucks County Historical Society, Doylestown, Pa. for permission to post this article here in the Wynkoop Family Research Library.

    I would particularly like to thank Deb Boden, lrboden@worldnet.att.net, for sending me a copy of this article ages ago, (way back in the 20th century!) Deb, I know it's taken me a long time to ask for permission to reprint this article, but I think you'll find the wait was worth it. You're a great friend and cousin and I can't tell you how much I appreciate all of the support and interest you've shown over the years.

    Finally, I'd like to thank Pam Sedor of the Radnor Memorial Library for all of her invaluable help over the years in acquiring a large portion of the material that graces these pages, and in this particular case for helping me acquire the final 41 notes that were missing from my original copy of this article. Pam, I couldn't have done it without you!

    All my best,

    Chris