15

(Photo by Richard F. Hope)

Easton National Bank Building (316 Northampton Street, now Bank Street Annex)

This property was originally part of a larger pair of Lots, which housed a colonial tavern facing Centre Square. Frederick Nungesser obtained licenses to sell liquor in 1759 and 1760 (when his name was spelled “Nuncaster”).[1] He finally obtained a patent from the Penn Family for Lot No.132 (in the corner of the Square) in 1765, in return for 7 shillings in yearly rent.[2] He also apparently built a stable on the adjoining land that faces Northampton Street[3] – Lot No.133 – but the Penn Family only gave formal title to that Lot Christina Nungessor, Frederick’s widow, in 1789.[4]

·  Frederick Nungesser was the great-grandfather of Easton lawyer Andrew Reeder,[5] who achieved fame (or notoriety) when he was appointed the first Territorial Governor of Kansas in 1854. A year later, he barely escaped the territory with his life.[6]

After Frederick Nungesser’s death 1774,[7] his will gave a life estate in Lot No.132 to his wife, and then (after her death) her property passed to their children.[8] This arrangement apparently resulted in some messy joint ownership interests. By 1800, the Widow Nungesser (who apparently acquired one of her children’s remainder interests) and the owners of three of the other children’s shares were sold to John Shnyder,[9] who in turn sold his 4/5 interest to John Green.[10] However, one daughter (Elizabeth, wife of Isaac Sidman[11]) did not join in selling to Green.

·  Elizabeth’s husband, Colonel Isaac Sidman, had become “the leading merchant in the town.” He “was instrumental in having the first sidewalk laid in the town . . . in front of his property” on Northampton Street.[12] Sidman was originally from Philadelphia, but had become the clerk to Johan David Boehringer, a shoemaker and merchant who had left the Moravian Economy in Bethlehem and ultimately opened a business in Easton using the Moravian church building on South Third Street, near the corner at Ferry Street. When Boehringer lost that property through a Sheriff’s sale in 1773, Frederick Nungesser had bought it and “transferred the business to Boehringer’s clerk, Isaac Sidman” – who then married Nungesser’s daughter Elizabeth in the following year. Sidman was very popular in Easton, and was elected the Lt. Colonel of the First Regiment of the “Flying Camp” Militia organized to aid General Washington in 1776, even though old Peter Kichlein had been appointed Colonel of Northampton Count’s troops the year before.[13] However, Sidman’s appointment “caused a great controversy owing to his youthful appearance”.[14] For whatever reason, the Northampton County Committee of Safety decided that “there was so much dissatisfaction with [Sidman] that it was not thought safe to have the division go into action under him. For this reason, . . . Sidman was removed, and Peter Kichline appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the new battalion”.[15] Sidman instead purchased property in 1776 at the NW corner of Third and Ferry Streets, on which he built a hotel. In about 1781, he sold that hotel to Conrad Ihrie Jr. and moved back to Philadelphia.[16]

·  According to Historian William J. Heller, Sidman returned to Easton in “about the year 1785, when the division of the estate of his late father-in-law, Frederick Nungesser, was taking place”. He built his Northampton Street store on land inherited from the Frederick Nungesser estate.[17] Historian Heller locates that store “at the southwest corner of Northampton Street and Centre Square”[18] – however, an engraving of the street that was otherwise dated to the late 1790s (and to the year 1800 by another historian) does not show this stone structure.[19] Whenever year the stone store was built, Sidman ultimately “disposed of his mercantile business to his clerks, Titus and Innes”, and returned again to Philadelphia.[20] He and his wife sold their 1/5 interest in the Nungesser estate’s land in 1802 to Peter Miller,[21] Easton’s “merchant prince”, one of the wealthiest citizens in town.[22]

Businessmen Green and Miller were then left to reconcile their partial interests in the property. They decided to partition their interests cleanly into separate lots, and adopted a simple plan. First, Miller would re-divide the two properties into 5 parcels. Then, Green would choose four of them for his own, leaving Miller the one remaining. In fact, Miller’s division split the two Original Lots into five parcels that all faced Northampton Street, and only the end parcel fronted on Centre Square.[23] (The original Lots, as surveyed by Parsons, had both fronted on Centre Square.[24]) Green took his four parcels from the ends – two nearest Centre Square and two nearest what became Bank Alley – while Miller was left with the one in the middle.[25] In 1815, John Green obtained a formal release of the 7 shillings annual rent to the Penn Family contained in the original Patent on Lot 132, thus clearing the title.[26]

John Green came to Easton in approximately 1784 or ’85 at age 17. He died on 9 March 1854 at age 87 or 88.[27] He was apparently a carpenter by trade.[28] He became a substantial property owner in Easton, owning property at the foot of Northampton Street, near the Delaware River bridge (now 101 Northampton Street), and a hotel on Northampton Street (now 137-39 Northampton Street), as well as this property at the SW corner of Centre Square and Northampton Street (now 30 Centre Square) and the land that later became the Easton Bank at 316 Northampton Street.[29] He was also a manager of the Delaware River Bridge Co., and of the Easton Water Co., as well as a founder and the President of the Fire Insurance Company of Northampton County.[30]

In an apparent effort to extend his successful hotel practice farther East on Northampton Street, John Green “erected a large three story brick Messuage” (building) on the two parcels of land next to what later became Bank Alley,[31] and had them operated as a hotel by ex-Revolutionary War Captain John Arndt.[32] John Arndt was the son of Major Jacob Arndt (1725 – 1806). The Major had immigrated to Pennsylvania with his parents at age 6-1/2, from their farm in or near the town of Baumholder in the Zweibrücken area of Germany.[33] Grandmother Arndt (the Major’s grandmother) had opposed the move, but changed her mind when a pig being painstakingly fattened for a family feast had to be sold instead to pay a special tax imposed by the Duke to pay for the wedding of the Duke’s daughter.[34] The Major learned shoemaking from his father, and grew up on his father’s farm in Germantown. He started a farm of his own, along with a shoemaking business, in Rockhill Township (Bucks County) at about the time of his marriage in 1747.[35] In 1756, early in the French and Indian War, he was elected Captain of the Rockhill Township militia, and was posted to frontier forts along the Blue Mountain, including Fort Allen. Among other things, he conducted Chief Teedyuscung to and from Fort Allen to Easton for the Indian Treaty Conference of 1756.[36] He was promoted to Major – over the head of two more senior Captains – in 1758, and continued to oversee frontier forts in the rear of General Forbes’s column on their march to seize Fort Duquesne (now Pittsburgh).[37] In January of 1760, with British forces in control of the War, he retired from the army (at age 35) and sold his farm in Bucks County in favor of 148 acres of land purchased in Forks Township, including the mill and dam on the Bushkill[38] where Bushkill Park would later be located.[39] There, he became in time a wealthy farmer and miller, Justice of the Peace, and a justice of the Common Pleas Quarter Session in 1766.[40] He acquired additional land in Forks Township, as well as a tract in Plainfield Township that he named “Baumholder” after his birthplace.[41] As the troubles with England developed, he became an ardent supporter of Pennsylvania’s rights, serving on Northampton County’s Committee of Observation and Inspection in Easton,[42] and in 1777-80 serving on the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, including the Council of Safety of 1777, which at various times exercised a “Roman dictatorship” with “practically absolute power” over the affairs of state.[43]

At the start of the Revolutionary War, one of Major Arndt’s sons, John Arndt (1748 – 1814), was “operating his father’s mill in Forks Township”, and had recently lost his wife after childbirth.[44] In 1776, John Arndt raised a company of approximately 102 men[45] that joined the “Flying Camp” Battalion of Col. Peter Kachlein (of Easton) to join Washington’s Army at Amboy, New Jersey. After two battles that summer, only 33 men came home in November.[46] Captain Arndt’s Company was commissioned as the Kichline Battalion’s rifle company[47] – at that time, a much less common military weapon than the musket, which was quicker-loading could support a bayonet.[48] Arndt’s Company fought at the disastrous Battle of Long Island, with heavy casualties.[49] The Northampton County men acquitted themselves well, being part of the force that stood off the opening attack by British General Grant’s division, and were said in fact have killed General Grant himself. The overall British Commander (General Howe) later recorded that Grant was killed by “Kichline’s riflemen”[50] (i.e. by Captain Arndt’s Company).

·  A more recent authority indicates, however, that it was a British Colonel James Grant, rather than General James Grant, who was killed, causing the Americans to reach an erroneous conclusion.[51]

Despite the initial American success in holding their position against a British feint, Howe’s British and Hessian army successfully outflanked Washington’s colonial force, forcing it back and inflicting a major defeat on the Americans. In its day, it was the largest battle (by number of participants) ever fought in North America.[52] Captain Arndt’s elbow was smashed by a “small cannon Ball” in the battle,[53] and he was treated at a military hospital in Bergen, New Jersey.[54]

A portion of the remnant of Arndt’s Company was then posted to Fort Washington, New York. The British stormed and captured this fort on 16 November 1776, once again with large colonial losses, including John Arndt’s young cousin who had served as the drummer.[55]

The Arndt Company survivors, including the wounded Captain Arndt, were mustered out of service on 17 November 1776.[56] Other colonials later made it home from captivity, such as the Northampton County Battalion’s Colonel (Peter Kichline, wounded and captured at the Battle of Long Island, who later became Easton Borough’s first Burgess[57]), and Jacob Weygandt Sr. (captured at Fort Washington, who later became Easton’s first newspaper publisher[58]). Arndt returned to Easton, and promptly filed charges with the County Committee to stop stories being circulated in town that he had hidden behind a barn at the Battle of Long Island, run away from his Company at Fort Washington, and sold out his Company.[59] The principal source of the stories was Frederick “Reeger” (Rieger),[60] repeated by two other men included Henry Allshouse[61] (Easton’s first carpenter,[62] who was apparently a relative of the Company’s fifer lost at Fort Washington).[63] Arndt was supported by evidence from two of his men, who testified that he had not hidden at Long Island but had personally saved “above twenty of his Com’y”. Although he had left Fort Washington the day before the British assault (presumably to review the other half of his Company, which was not stationed there), it was not in any apprehension of a forthcoming British attack.[64] The trial vindicated Arndt, and Reeger was ordered to acknowledge misconduct by circulating his stories.[65]

Somewhat incapacitated by his wound (he was never again able to bend his elbow), John Arndt moved back to his father’s grist mill in Forks Township.[66] The next year (1777), the Captain married his second wife – Elizabeth, daughter of Conrad Ihrie,[67] whose farm was a close neighbor in Forks Township.[68] His father-in-law owned and operated a tavern on South Pomfret Street (where the little municipal parking lot is now located in the middle of the block on the East side of South Third Street).[69] In order to make a home for the newly married Captain Arndt couple, Conrad Ihrie demanded that his tenant, Robert Levers (Easton’s Prothonotary and virtual “dictator”), vacate his rooms in the Tavern, and also remove the United States and Pennsylvania documents that Levers had stored there while the British occupied Philadelphia. Levers did move for a time,[70] but disliked living out of Easton, and was eventually allowed to return when he agreed to let Ihrie increase his rent from £13 per year to an “extortionate” £100 per year.[71] The Arndts continued to live with the Major at the mill property in Forks Township[72] until 1796, when they moved into Easton to a different house owned by Conrad Ihrie at the NW corner of Ferry and South Pomfret (later Third) Streets.[73]

John Arndt was appointed Register for the Probate of Wills and Recorder of Deeds in 1777. He also succeeded his father’s office as Justice of the Peace, and later became Clerk of the Orphan’s Court.[74] In 1778 he also was appointed to the army’s Commissary of Purchases in Pennsylvania, and in the following year he became a Commissioner of Exchange (of prisoners of war). He also served as Northampton County Treasurer for several years.[75] John Arndt purchased his father’s mill property in Forks Township in 1785, subject to paying a portion of the income to his parents.[76] He became a Judge of the Northampton County Court of Common Pleas in 1786, and Clerk of the Orphans Court in 1788. He was also a member of the first national Electoral College in that year, casting his vote for George Washington to become the first President.[77] He was also elected a delegate in 1787 to the Pennsylvania Convention that considered the new federal Constitution: “It has been said that his approval of this document brought all the other Pennsylvania delegates in line.”[78]