84 



HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY. 



HON. MAHLON H. STOUT, president 

 judge of the courts of Bucks county, was 

 born in Richland township, Bucks county, 

 Pennsylvania, March lo, 1852, being the 

 son of Jacob and Amanda (Headman) 

 Stout, both of German descent. 



Jacob Stout, the great-great-grandfather 

 of the subject of this sketch, was- born in 

 Germany in the year 1711, and came to this 

 country at the age of twenty-six years. He 

 arrived in Philadelphia in the ship "Sam- 

 uel," August 30. 1737, accompanied by an 

 elder brother John, aged thirty years. In 

 the year 1739 Jacob Stout married Anna 

 Leisse, widow of John Leisse, of Rockhill 

 township, Bucks county, Pennsylvania. 

 John Leisse, LaCene, Lacey, or Licey, as 

 the name has been variously , spelled, ar- 

 rived in the ship "Adventurer," from Rot- 

 terdam, with wife Anna, aged twenty- four 

 years, a brother, Paul La Gene, with his 

 wife Luisa and three children, and a broth- 

 er-in-law, Michel Miller, September 23, 

 1732. John Leisse purchased in 1735 two 

 hundred acres in Rockhill under the name 

 of "John Lacey." He died in 1738, and 

 the following year his widow married Jacob 

 Stout. The two hundred acre farm pur- 

 chased by Leisse. included a large part of 

 the present borough of Perkasie. In 1759 

 Johannes and Hendrick Licey, the sons of 

 John Leisse, deceased, conveyed this tract 

 to their stepfather, Jacob Stout, and he 

 and wife in turn conveyed to them tracts 

 in HilUown, portions of 266 acres purchased 

 by Jacob Stout in 1757. The first purchase 

 of land by Jacob Stout was a tract of land 

 adjoining the Durham tract, now in Will- 

 iams township, Northampton .^ county, 243 

 acres, purchased September 9, 1750; his 

 residence at that date was given as "Dur- 

 ham township, Bucks county." In 1753 he 

 purchased a mill property at Church Hill, 

 in Rockhill township. In 1767 he purchased 

 the Pine Run mill property and one hun- 

 dred and nineteen acres, and in 1774 a 

 tract of one hundred and fifty acres in 

 New Britain township. These later pur- 

 chases were doubtless to provide homes for 

 his daughter, Salome, who had married 

 Abraham Freed, a miller, and to whom he 

 conveyed the mill and forty-one acres three 

 years later ; and Catharine, who had mar- 

 ried Jacob SchliefTer, who occupied and 

 later heired the New Britain property. 

 Jacob Stout was a potter by trade and was 

 a successful and prominent man in the com- 

 munity. The last twenty years of his life 

 were doubtless spent on his Perkasie farm, 

 • where he lies buried in a neat little burial 

 lot close to the P. & R. R. R. station. He 

 died April 30, 1779. aged sixty-eight and a 

 half years. The children of Jacob and Anna 

 (Miller-Lei.sse) Stout were: Abraham. 

 Isaac; Salome, married (first) Abraham 

 Freed and (second) Gabriel Swartzlander ; 

 and Catharine, wife of Jacob Schlicfifer 



Abraham Stout, eldest son of Jacob and 

 Anna Stout, was born August 17, 1740. He 

 was probably one of the best educated 

 Pennsylvania Germans of his time in Bucks 



county. Most of his education was ac- 

 quired in the old Germantown Academy,, 

 under the tuition of Hilarius Becker, pro- 

 fessor of German, and David J. Dove as 

 instructor in English. He thus acquired a. 

 thorough knowledge of the English lan- 

 guage, a rare accomplishment at that date 

 or for many years later among the German 

 colonists of upper Bucks. He was an ex- 

 cellent accountant and penman as well as 

 a good business man, and his services were 

 much in demand as a surveyor, scrivener 

 and accountant among his German neigh- 

 bors for over a quarter of a century. From' 

 an examination of the old papers on file 

 in the county ofiices it would appear that he 

 drew a great majority of the deeds, wills 

 and other legal papers for the middle sec- 

 tion of upper Bucks during that period. In 

 addition to this he was constantly in de- 

 mand by the court to serve as one of the 

 auditors appointed to prepare and state the 

 accounts of administrators and executors 

 under the rule then in vogue, and many of 

 these papers now on file in the orphans' 

 court are models of penmanship, concise- 

 ness and neatness. At the death of his 

 father in 1779 his brothers and sisters con- 

 veyed to him the homestead farm at Per- 

 kasie, whereupon he was born, and he spent 

 his whole life there, the Durham farm go- 

 ing to his brother Isaac, while the sisters 

 were provided for as before stated. He 

 died June 8, 1812, and is buried beside his 

 father, mother and wife in the family- 

 burial lot at Perkasie. His life presents a 

 fine example of German-American citizen- 

 ship. Though he was in the height of his 

 local usefulness during the period of the 

 Revolutionary war, he seems to have held 

 aloof from active participation therein. He 

 was elected to represent Rockhill township 

 in the committee of safety in 1775, but 

 after several meetings had been held he 

 asked to be relieved and another was ap- 

 pointed in his place. It is probable that the 

 traditions of the sufferings of his ancestors 

 from the civil wars in the Palatinate had 

 their effect in deterring him from taking 

 an active part in the struggle. He was a. 

 delegate from Bucks county to the constitu- 

 tional convention of 1790, and took an ac- 

 tive part in the framing of the constitution 

 of our commonwealth. He married Octo- 

 ber 21, 1772, Mary Magdalen Hartzell, 

 daughter of Henry Hartzell of Rockhill. 

 She died November 8, 181 1, in her sixty- 

 first year. Their children were : Hannah, 

 who married a Worman, and was left a 

 widow young and for many 3'ears resided' 

 with her parents; Abraham; Henry H. ; 

 Jacob H. ; Anna, who married Jacob Hart- 

 man; Margaretta, who married Tobias 

 Rule; (later spelled Ruhl") and Magdalene, 

 who married John Gearhart. 



Jacob Stout, second son of Abraham and 

 Magdalen, was the grandfather of Judge 

 Stout. He was born on the Perkasie 

 homestead January 9. 1775. and died there 

 .August 15. 1820. His wife was Elizabeth 

 Barndt, born November 27, 1778, and died' 



