HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY. 



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Society, and the Royal Numismatic Society 

 of Belgium. He studied law with Judge 

 A. V. Parsons and Eli Kirk Price, of 

 Philadelphia. He died in August, 1902, 

 at Narragansett Pier, Rhode Island, and 

 is buried in the family lot at Laurel Hill, 

 Philadelphia, where his father, brother 

 Lafayette, and sister Eliza F. (Myer) Bir- 

 key are buried. 



RIGGS FAMILY. Edward Riggs, 

 Puritan, settled at Roxbury, Massachu- 

 setts, 1630, and was made a freeman. He 

 was a member of the Anglician Church 

 when in England (Anglo-Saxon origin). 

 He was married, in 1618, to a Miss 

 Holmes, born before 1590, in Nanzing 

 Parish, Waltham Abbey, Essex county, 

 England. The Riggs family have their 

 coat of arms. Edward Riggs had one 

 son, Edward Riggs, who fought against 

 the Pequod Indians in 1637, and was 

 made a sergeant on the field of battle 

 for bravery and for saving the lives of 

 his captain and companions from an In- 

 dian ambuscade. Sergeant Edward 

 Riggs went from Roxbury to New Mil- 

 ford, Connecticut, where he purchased 

 land and built a palisade house near the 

 present town of Derby, and therein hid 

 Generals Gofif and Whally, known as the 

 "Regicides." He had one daughter, 

 Mary, and sons Joseph, Edward, and 

 Samuel, who was known as Ensign 

 Riggs. Sergeant Edward Riggs with 

 his wife Elizabeth went to Newark, New 

 Jersey, about 1666, and settled it, there- 

 after being known as the funder ot 

 Newark, New Jersey. His daughter, 

 Mary, and sons, Joseph and Edward, 

 aided in the settlement thereof. His wife 

 Elizabeth was the only woman who 

 stayed over the winter, and for her brav- 

 ery she was voted a double portion of 

 land. Sergeant Riggs kept a wolf pit for 

 his own amusement. 



Ensign Samuel Riggs did not accom- 

 pany his parents upon their removal to 

 New Jersey. His daughter married the 

 Rev. Humphrey, whose son was Gen- 

 eral Washington's bosom friend during 

 the Revolutionary war, his private sec- 

 retary before and after it, who carried 

 the colors by special orders from York- 

 town to Philadelphia to Congress and 

 was voted an elegant sword by them 

 for bravery. He was minister to Spain 

 and Portugal, and introduced the culture 

 of Merino sheep into this country. He 

 was a noted literary man in his time, 

 and his portrait by Trumbull is at Yale, 

 and another by Gilbert Stuart is in the 

 state house at New Haven or Hartford. 

 His mother, formerly Sarah Riggs, was 

 a very elegant woman in her time, and 

 was always known among her contemp- 

 oraries as Lady Humphreys, and the 

 Chapter of Daughters of "the Revolu- 

 tion at Derby, Connecticut, was named 

 in her honor. 



Joseph Riggs, of Newark, New Jer- 



sey, took an active part in the beginning 

 of the Revolution, and his writings may 

 be found in a number of places in 

 Force's "American Archives." He left 

 Newark, New Jersey, and took up his 

 residence in New York. Benjamin 

 Myer, great-grandfather of Henry W. 

 Birkey and Isaac Myer Birkey, M. D., 

 married Sarah Riggs, daughter of Jo- 

 seph Riggs. 



MAHLON C. DETWEILER, of 

 Quakertown, is one of the most enter- 

 prising and progressive business men of 

 the communitj% and has contributed his 

 share toward the building up and main- 

 tenance of its reputation, and to him it 

 is indebted for the position it holds 

 among the wealthy and prosperous 

 towns of the county. He was born in 

 Milford township, Bucks county, Penn- 

 sylvania, March 24, 1846, and is a son 

 of Henry and Annie (Clj^mer) Det- 

 weiler. 



The Detweiler family is one of the 

 oldest German-American families in 

 America, and is descended from several 

 different German emigrants vvho came 

 to Pennsylvania and settled in Mont- 

 gomery county at dififerent periods from 

 1715 to 1750. Hans Detweiler, the an- 

 cestor of the subject of this sketch, was 

 one of the earliest settlers on the Skip- 

 pack, and was also an early landowner 

 in Bucks county. His son Jacob lived 

 and died in Upper Hanover township, 

 and had two sons, Jacob and John, and 

 two daughters. Jacob, the son, owned 

 and occupied at the time of his death in 

 1791 a tract of land extending across 

 the county line into IMilford township, 

 where his widow Catharine and five chil- 

 dren took up their residence, after his 

 decease. 



Jacob Detweiler, the grandfather of 

 the subject of this sketch, on arriving 

 at manhood located in Upper Saucon, 

 Lehigh county, where he followed the 

 life of a farmer for many years, remov- 

 ing later to Milford township, Bucks 

 county. He married Magdalena Heist, 

 of an old family of upper Bucks, and 

 they were the parents of seven chil- 

 dren — Samuel. Henry, Charles. Jacob, 

 Daniel. Catharine and Elizabeth. Henry 

 Detweiler, son of Jacob and iMagda- 

 lena, was born in Upper Saucon, Le- 

 high county, April 24, 1817. Early in 

 life he learned the shoemaker trade, 

 which he followed for a few years, but 

 the most of his life was devoted to ag- 

 ricultural pursuits. He married, No- 

 vember ID, 1839, Anna Clymer, daugh- 

 ter of Henry and ]\Iary (Shaffer) Cly- 

 mer, of Milford township, Bucks county, 

 and soon after his marriage took up his 

 residence in Milford. On April 4, 1846, 

 he purchased seventy acres of the old 

 Clymer homestead, between Milford 

 Square and Quakertown, which he 



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