|
In 1680, Bernard Fidler emigrated from Hull, England to Woodbridge, New Jersey. Bernard’s son John, apparently orphaned at an early age, relocated around 1692 to Hopewell, near Pennington in Burlington County (later Hunterdon County, now Mercer County), New Jersey with the Andrew Smith family whose daughter Sarah later became his wife. Several of the families living around Pennington were “deeply impressed by Methodism which influenced their migrations.” Early in the year 1783, John and Sarah Fidler’s son Timothy, then 41 years old, together with his wife Anna (Wilson) and several of their children came by wagon train along the National Pike to this place, not sure whether they were in Maryland or Pennsylvania. Other families relocating from New Jersey to this area, either with the Fidler family or at about the same time, included Hixon, Jacques, Powell, Covalt, Stillwell, Rose, Reed, and Warford. The Fidlers lived first in their wagon and then in a small house on the farm owned by Moses Reed, a few miles north of here.
The “Poplar Spring” tract, containing 178 acres, was originally warranted by John Guthrie in 1774. It quickly passed through several hands until Timothy Fidler acquired it around the time that he was granted warrant for 20 adjoining acres in 1793. The tract then extended from the top of the Tonoloway Ridge several hundred yards across the plain to the east and extended North slightly more than a mile from the Maryland border and contained 198 acres. The house burned to the ground in 1937. The cemetery is all that remains of the original farm. Green Lane (Route T-306) runs North to South through the farm.
Poplar Spring tract
(boundaries taken from 1833 Deed:
Moses Gregory purchase from Timothy Fidler’s heirs)
Several of Timothy and Anna’s sons became Methodist circuit riders and were far away from home in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Ohio. The younger children and grandchildren all moved on to central Ohio in the 1820s. Widow Anna Fidler remained at Poplar Spring as did daughter Eleanor’s eldest daughter Anna who had married Joseph Hixon and had a family of her own. As told in “Fidler Lore”:
John and Noah Fidler became concerned about their mother’s health and in the summer of 1828 … led her favorite horse to the doorstep where she mounted for the long trip to Ohio with them to their homes in Licking County. She rode horseback all the way at the wonderful age of 83 and never returned. In August 1830 she died at Noah’s home after months of lingering. Noah’s oldest daughter, Anne Filder (1812-1862) took care of her.
In 1833, Moses Gregory, who had married Mary Hixon (Anna and Joseph’s eldest daughter and Timothy Fidler’s great granddaughter) purchased Poplar Spring from Timothy Fidler’s heirs. Moses Gregory later acquired several adjoining tracts, expanding the farm to nearly 600 acres. The farm subsequently passed to daughter Rachel Gregory Brooke and then to her daughter Lulu Brooke Fields (and her husband J. Frank Fields) until, after six generations of occupation by the same family, it was sold outside the family in 1919. Current landowner is Lawrence Burkins.
|
