Records of the Courts of Quarter Sessions and Commonn Pleas of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 1684-1700.

By: The Colonial Society of Pennsylvania, Pub. 1943, Reprinted 2019, 454 pages, Index, soft cover, ISBN #0-89308-907-9.

Bucks County was created in 1682 and was one of the first three counties created within the state. It is the parent county to Northampton and Lehigh counties. It sits in the Delaware Valley just north of Philadelphia in the Southeastern portion of the state boarding New Jersey. The court was held 4 times a year and heard such cases of assault, batteries, trespass, all breaches of the peace. They held authority of administration in intestate estates and orphans, granted license to build water grist mills, to taverns and ordinaries, and to build and maintain public ferries. The court also appointed Constables and Overseers of Roads, and named the men who lived within the bounds to keep them in repair., as well as imposing taxes for roads, courthouses and goals, appointed all county officers, civil and military, all lists of Jurors and probates of Wills. These records are extremely valuable for the researcher, especially if an ancestor died intestate (without a will), and in some instances a person may be listed in these court records and nowhere else in the county records