HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY 



543 



Leanna and Joseph, all deceased; Justina, 

 wife of Peter S..Solli-day ; and Darius, the 

 subject of this sketch. 



Darius Sine was reared and educated in 

 Bedminster township. He taught school in 

 Haycock, Bedminster and Springfield town- 

 ships for six years. In 1887 he entered the 

 employ of William Renner in the feed and 

 coal business at Perkasie, and remained 

 with him until January 4, 1904, when he 

 purchased the business of Mr. Renner and 

 now conducts it. He is a member of St. 

 Stephen's Reformed church at Perkasie, and 

 politically is a Democrat. He is a member 

 of Perkasie Lodge, No. 671, I. O. O. F., 

 Mont Alto Lodge, No. 246, K. of P. ; the 

 Modern Workman ; and the Ridgely Pro- 

 tective Association. Mr. Sine has been 

 twice married, first in December, 1885, to 

 Annie, daughter of Jacob Dimmig, who 

 died in April, 1888, leaving him one child, 

 Harry, born March i, 1887. He married 

 (second) in 1889, Sarah J., daughter of 

 Benjamin Fellman, who has borne him two 

 children : William Renner, born July 12, 

 1890; and Paul Revere, born September 13, 

 1899. 



EZEKIEL A. GROOM, of Buckingham, 

 was born in Solebury township, Bucks 

 county, October 29, 1834, being a son of 

 Jonathan A. and Rebecca (Pidcock) 

 Groom. The Groome family is an old one 

 in Bucks coimty, the first settlers here be- 

 ing Peter and Thomas Groome, brothers. 

 Peter purchased two hundred acres of land 

 of Penn in Southampton in 1683, but sold 

 it in 1690 and removed to New Jersey. 

 Thomas Groome in 1704 purchased 550 

 acres on the Delaware, in Bristol township, 

 which he sold four years later, and set- 

 tled in Byberry, Philadelphia county. Will- 

 iam Groome, supposed to be the son of 

 Thomas, settled in Southampton in 17 18 

 on 112 acres purchased that year, upon 

 which he later erected a grist mill. He died 

 there in 1736, leaving a widow Margaret 

 and seven children, four of whom grew to 

 maturity, viz. : Thomas ; Mary ; Anne, who 

 married Garret Vansant in 1739; and Will- 

 iam, who married Rachel Walton in 1747. 

 Thomas, the eldest son of William and 

 Margaret Groome, at the death of his broth- 

 er William in 1760 purchased the interest of 

 the other heirs in the mill property and 

 settled thereon. Part of the land was --old 

 by the sheriff in 1788, but was purchased 

 by his son Thomas. Thomas and Lydia 

 Groom, had three sons^Thomas, above 

 referred to, William and John. Thomas 

 remained on the old homestead, and Will- 

 iam and John removed to LIpper Make- 

 field about 1800. John Groom, third son 

 of Thomas and Lydia, purchased of John 

 Beaumont a small lot in L^pper Makefield, 

 and died thereon in 1810, leaving four chil- 

 dren : Thomas ; Phoebe, wife of John 

 Hagerman ; Mary, wife of Amos Bennett: 

 and John. Thomas Groome, eldest son of 



John, was a farmer in Upper Makefield, 

 where his son Jonathan was born in 1808. 

 Jonathan Groom married Rebecca Pid- 

 cock, and had six children : Mary E. Cook, 

 of Trenton, New Jersey; Joseph P., of 

 Buckingham, a member of the One Hun- 

 dred and Seventy-fourth Regiment Penn- 

 sylvania Volunteers, during the Civil war; 

 Ezekiel A. ; Ramsey C, a member of Com- 

 pany A, One Hundred and Fourth Regi- 

 ment Pennsylvania Volunteers, during the 

 war; Sarah, wife of Israel Worthington, of 

 Buckingham; and Anna Rebecca, wife of 

 Rudolph B. Cotter, of Wycombe, Penn- 

 sylvania. 



The subject of this sketch was born in 

 Solebury, but at the age of nine went to 

 live with 'Squire Edward Pool, in Upper 

 Makefield. Two years later he went to 

 John Murfit's, in the same township, with 

 whose family he lived until 1870, with the 

 exception of one year (his nineteenth) in 

 which he made a trip to the west. In 

 1870 he rented the Merrick farm in Make- 

 field (Washington's Headquarters in 1777) 

 where he lived for one year, and then re- 

 moved to the Anderson farm in Bucking- 

 ham, where he lived for ten years. The 

 next twelve years he lived on the D. W. 

 McNair and Joseph Shelly farms in Buck- 

 ingham. Mr. Groom has been a farmer 

 in Buckingham continuously since 1871. In 

 1893 he purchased his present farm, and 

 has resided thereon since that time. In 

 politics he is a Democrat. In 1890 he was 

 elected county commissioner and served a 

 term of three years. Mr. Groom was mar- 

 ried in 1858 to Elizabeth Wark, of Phila- 

 delphia, by whom he has four children : 

 Henrietta D., and Jennie, residing at home ; 

 Georgianna, wife of Harry Hallowell, ot 

 Philadelphia; and John M., residing at 

 home. Both Mr. Groom and his son are 

 members of Aquetong Lodge, No. 193, I. O. 

 O. F., of Doylestown. 



MAHLON KELLER, merchant and jus- 

 tice of the peace, Perkasie, Bucks county, 

 was born in Plumstead township, Bucks 

 county, November 4, 1864, and is a son of 

 Abraham and Judith (Myers) Keller, and 

 a lineal descendant of Heinrich and Juliann 

 (Kleindinst) Keller, both natives of Weier- 

 bach, Baden, Germany, who came to Amer- 

 ica in 1738 and settled in Bedminster, near 

 Kellers' Church, of which Heinrich was one 

 of the organizers and for whom it was 

 named. 



Christopher (or Stophell) Keller, tenth 

 child of Heinrich and Juliann, born in 

 Bucks county, December, 1751, was ensign 

 of a company in the Flying Camp in 1776, 

 and served his country through the disas- 

 trous campaign in New York and on Long 

 Island. Returning to Bucks county he set- 

 tled in Haycock township, where he was a 

 considerable landowner and a man of prom- 

 inence in the community. He died July 8, 



