Joseph Fisher Tract
The Joseph Fisher tract included all of the township west of Horsham Road and to the Montgomrty Counnty line, computed to be acres. As drawn pm Holme’s Map, its northern boundary was about the line of Lower State Road, whereas in fact it extended some 80 rods beyond that line. Perhaps it is this mistake which has caused confusion in the minds of local historians.
Joseph Fisher was a native of Cheshire, but was living near Dublin, Ireland, before his removal to Pennsylvania in 1783 [1683?] with his family and 11 servants. He bought this land before leaving Europe, agreeing to pay an annual ground rent of 1 shilling per 100 acres, later reduced to 1 shilling per 1,000 acres. After his arrival he purchased a plantation near the present town of Fox Chase, where he made his home. The Horsham property was then offered for sale, but the last of it was not disposed of until more than 50 years afterward.
The Horsham tract, then considered to be in Dublin Township, was surveyed for Fisher at some date prior to 2 mo.14, 1685, but he did not receive his deed to the property until 2 mo. 1702, seventeen years later (G 2, p 21; G 6, p 219). Apparently this and other deeds were held up until Penn made his second visit to the colony [1702]. Within the following 10 years, he disposed of 6 portions of his tract, 1400 acres in all, to certain Welsh settlers who had taken up land near Gywnedd. All of these tracts lay along or near the Welsh Road in the northern half of the township.
Fisher’s will, dated Dec. 12, 1711 devised the unsold portion of his Horsham property to his son Joseph Fisher the Younger, who outlived his father only 6 years. On Oct 10, 1726, he and his wife Mary executed deeds for the 6 parcels of land which his father had sold, but he made no further sales and died the following year, having made a verbal will , dated Oct 23, 1717 (Wills, D, p. 84), which gave his daughter Isabel 800 acres “near North Wales”, his daughter Mary “the tract that Joshua Holt lives on”, and his 3rd daughter Martha “1100 acres near Mary’s”.
All the children were apparently young at the time of their father’s death, and the estate lay undisturbed for many years, during which Isabel died in her minority, unmarried and intestate. In 1734 Martha petitioned the Orphan’s Court for a physical division of the property, and at a hearing on October 16th of that year Mary was allotted 1127 acres immediately north of Dresher Road, Martha’s 1127 acres adjoining Mary’s portion, and the odd 800 acres along the Montgomery Township line was divided between the two. This settlement left about 500 acres between the Babylon Road and the Limekiln Pike unprovided for. They were later disposed of by joint deed of Mary Fisher the mother, and her two daughters.
At some date between the settlement and May 20, 1735, the daughter Mary married Joseph Hall of Lower Dublin, then described as a “yeoman” (H 20,p 503). The next year he was known as a “turner” (G 20, p.21). During the next two or three years the Halls disposed of all their Horsham property.
Martha sold her 418 acres along the Montgomery County line to various buyers on Apr. 15, 1738. She was then a spinster but before November 24th of the same year she was married to Thomas Green, a widower (G 10, p. 69) and a carpenter, living in the Northern Liberties section of Philadelphia. A litte over a year later, the Greens placed a mortgage on the 300 acres lying next to Mary’s former holdings (G1,P 236). On April 25,1743 they paid off this mortgage and placed another on the entire 1127 acres (G3, p. 144). This second mortgage was not satisfied until August 22,1747, and explains why this section of the township was nor opened to settlement until many years after the other portions were occupied by bona fide residents. The entire tract was disposed of before the end of the year 1750.
