William Parsons who was for years the most prominent citizens of Easton, and who in fact may be said to been the father of the infant town, was born in Great Britain, on the sixth of May, 1701. Even before reaching his majority he had emigrated and settled in Philadelphia, where he married in the year 1722, and worked at his trade- that of shoemaking for many years. In some way, he secured the friendship and confidence of the Proprietaries' agent in such a degree that in the year 1743 he received the appointment of Surveyor-General of Pennsylvania. It was a position of honor and of considerable profit, but yet a very laborious one, on which account-as his health seemed never to of been robust-he was obliged to resign the office in 1748. He then removed to Lancaster, and remained there until the laying out of Easton, and the erection the new county Northampton, rendered his services once more indispensable to the Penns, who induce him to leave Lancaster and take up residence in Easton, for the purpose of filling the offices of Prothonotary and Clerk of the courts of Northampton; and also to act as Proprietaries agent in the care of their property interests in the county all of which duties he faithfully performed as long as his low condition of health would permit. At the time of the commencement of the Indian wars in 1755, he was appointed Major of militia, but does not appear to have seen any actual military service. He died at Easton on the twenty-second of December 1757 and was buried in the old graveyard on Fifth street.

 

At that time, the dwellings and inhabitant in the Phillipsburg settlement did considerably outnumber those at Easton, and, to a superficial observer, it seemed to possess some superior advantages. The heirs of David Martin (the old ferryman who had established his ferry across the Delaware, as early as 1739) were owners of a large portion of the lands upon which Phillipsburg stands, and another tract of four hundred and eleven acres was owned by Mr. John Cox, of Philadelphia, who, when he saw the laying out of the town in the Forks, conceived a similar project upon his own side of the river, and this it, was which produced anxiety to the Proprietaries, and a desire, on their part, to gain such a foothold on the Jersey side as might enable them to nip the rival enterprise in the bud.

 

The start which Easton had, however, in the establishment there of the county seat with its public buildings, seemed to deter Mr. Cox from the prosecution of his plans, and after a time they were definitely abandoned. But, although the Proprietaries feared danger from the rivalry of Phillipsburg, they by no means shared Mr. Parsons adverse view of the eligibility of Easton's location, nor those which were so freely expressed in a petition of remonstrance which, thirteen years later, was addressed to the Assembly praying against the erection of the Court House at Easton, in which it was asserted that "there could not have been a place devised, more improper and inconvenient than Easton appears environed on all sides with hills and rivers, secluding it, as it were, from the rest of the county with which it can never have any necessary communication that, in particular, the road to Easton is extremely inconvenient, passing through a large tract Of land called the Dry-lands, so thinly inhabited that, in the distance of twelve mules from Bethlehem to Easton, there are but one or two huts, and not one drop of water, neither in the summer or fall seasons, to refresh either man or horse, so that in winter, travelers are in danger of perishing with cold, or of being parched up in summer with heat; that the remote situation of Easton is grievous so they hope that, in this free, government, a greater evil, though established by law, shall not continue and prevail, only to obtain a lesser good, and that, though the inhabitants of Eaton, in case of removing from there the seat of judicature, may in some measure suppose themselves to be sufferers, yet it is certainly better that they should bear a small inconveniency, than that the whole county should languish forever under a law which, at first view, appears so grievous and burthensome.

 

"On the contrary, the Proprietaries, from the first, saw and believed in the natural advantages which the location afforded, and they steadfastly adhered to this, their original belief. How far they were correct in their view, let a century and a quarter of experience, let the now teeming fertility of those despised "Dry-lands", let the railroads and the water-ways, overcrowded with the products of mills and furnaces and mines, give answer!

 

The prison,1 upon which Mr. Parsons, in his Peters' letter, seemed so strongly to rely, as a means Of increasing the population, was completed early in the next season, 1753. It stood on a lot at the corner of Pomfret (Third) street and Pine alley, just south of the square, upon a part of which is now Howell's marble-yard.

 

TAVERNS-OCCUPATION-COURTS.

It is often the case that a public house built at some cross-roads, or favorable intermediate point between populous centres, decides the location of a town. A settlement of a few houses springs up around the tavern-nucleus, and in the event of favorable circumstances, grows to the dignity of a town, or, perhaps of a city. But this was not the case with Easton; Parsons and Scull were obliged to go six miles to Lefebre's for their food and their "slings," for there was no inn nearer than that. There was not even so much as a road leading to the town site from any direction. The only improvement was Martin's old log ferry house, at the "Point". Mr. Martin had, seven years[?] before, petitioned the Court of Bucks county, for a road to be laid out from his ferry to Bethlehem, and the court had granted his prayer, but with that action the matter had died for the time, and years elapsed before the building of the road was accomplished.

 

Concerning the old ferry and the route of travel leading to and from it, some light is thrown by the account which Mr. John Green (who was ferryman there in 1792) gives of his interview with an old man who crossed it in that year, after an absence of half a century. This old man told Mr. Green that when he had last crossed the ferry (about 1742 or 1743, in David Martin's time), it was in a canoe, and that he swam his horse alongside, that the site of Easton at that time was covered with woods and thick underbrush, and that from thence to Bethlehem, which had just commenced to be settled, the only route was over an Indian path.

 

But, although the establishment of public houses did not, in this case, precede the settlement of the town, they were among the very first of the erections which formed that settlement. The first tavern, was that of William Craig and John Anderson, who received their license at the first term of court held in the county, June 16th, 1752. Their house stood on the public square, near its southeast corner, the rear of their premises adjoining the old jail lot. It afterwards fell into the hands of Christian Rinker, who kept it in a creditable manner for many a year.

 

The second inn in Easton was opened in the old ferry house, at the Point, in December, 1752, just at the time when Mr. Parsons was expressing himself so despondingly to Richard Peters in regard to the future prospects of the town. The proprietor of this second public house was Nathaniel Vernon, who was also the ferryman.2 He had been refused a license at the June Term of the Court, the same which granted it to Craig and Anderson. Perhaps a reason for this action might be suspected in the fact that Vernon was strong in the Quaker interest, while the other house was is strongly for the Proprietaries; and besides this, William Craig was, himself, one of the justices.

 

As the old log building was not sufficiently capacious to answer for both ferry house and tavern, Mr. Vernon added several shells or shanties, much on the principle, though probably not strictly in the style, of the cottage system, so fashionable at the watering-places of the present day.

 

A third public house, of which Paul Miller was landlord, was opened at the southwest corner of Northampton and Hamilton (now Fourth) streets, the spot at present occupied by Becker Rader's store. This, however, was not started until more than a year after that at the ferry house, by Vernon. It became a house of good repute, and in its day entertained many of the notables, who had occasion to stop in Easton from time to time. Among these was Governor Denny, who availed himself of its hospitality while attending the Indian council, in 1758. This building was erected for Miller by Jasper Scull.

 

One of the eleven heads of families mentioned by Parsons in his letter, was Anthony Esser, who was the first to start the business of butchering in the new town. He lived in a house belonging to Nathaniel Vernon, who, once, on the occasion of an Indian treaty at Easton, forced his tenant to vacate the house, for the accommodation of his (Vernon's) Quaker lodgers. Esser was an honest and public-spirited man, and very much respected.

 

About the same time, George Ernst Becker, a German, fresh from the Fatherland, commenced the baking business, though at first in an extremely small way. When be arrived in the town, he encamped with his family in a sort of tent, upon the public square, but soon, with the assistance of neighbors, he erected a small house, which answered well the purpose of sheltering his family. He was determined to push on in business, and after having established his humble domicile, he started for the Moravian mill, at Bethlehem, to procure flour for his first batch of bread. He traveled both ways on foot, over the Indian path, and brought back the flour in a sack upon his shoulder.

 

The business of blacksmithing was prosecuted by Abraham Berlin, and there can be no doubt that in so new a settlement, and particularly while a jail was in process of erection, he was blessed with plenty of work.

 

A good part of the masonry work of the jail, was done by John Finley. Indeed, the building of the outer walls, enclosing the yard, was given to him by contract, at the rate of seven shillings and sixpence per perch. He was a good stone mason, and was another of the eleven householders then composing the little settlement of Easton.

 

The first, and only, house carpenter and joiner in the place, was Henry Allshouse, one Of the original settlers, who lived on the public square, at the northeast corner, near where the Post Office now is. He did the carpentering work on the Jail, and afterwards on the Court House, and he lived a most esteemed citizen of Easton, for more than a quarter of a century. He was a member of Captain John Arndt's company of soldiers, who marched to join General Washington at Long Island, in 1776, and he was captured by the British at the battle of Fort Washington, on November 16th, of that year.

 

The first store in the settlement, was opened by an Israelite, named Meyer Hart. His stock was very small, but he prospered, of course. Afterwards he drifted into innkeeping, and, in eleven years after his modest commencement with the store, his county tax was higher than that of any other person in Easton. He appears to have been a man of public spirit and a respected citizen.

 

Easton's first lawyer, Lewis Gordon, Esq., "was, upon his prayer, admitted an attorney to practice in the county of Northampton." This was done at the first session of Northampton county court, June 16th, 1751. He was a man of ability, and, for many years, occupied a prominent place in the affairs of the county; but his fair fame was indelibly stained, by his defection from his country's cause, in the darkest hour of the Revolution.

 

These were the trades and professions of those who (including Mr. Parsons himself) were the heads of the eleven families, spoken of by him in his letter of December 3d. But which of these he had in mind, when he made his disparaging allusion to "poor gentle-folks" can hardly be conjectured. Probably running the ferry for the heirs of David Martin.