by Jeffrey Marshall
Yardley is a river town. We know it for skaters on Lake Afton, Yardley ducks, the stately yet welcoming Victorian buildings that house businesses along Main Street and the beautiful homes that surround this small Bucks County borough. The town is located where Brock Creek enters the Delaware, a place that is suitable for crossing the river and would be the site of a ferry and later a bridge. Yardley, being a river town, attracted entrepreneurs because of its connection to Wilburtha, New Jersey and the mill that the town was built around.
Roads were built to connect Yardley to the surrounding countryside to allow farmers to reach the mill and ferry. The core of the town is located at the intersection of Afton Avenue (the road from Langhorne to Newtown) with Main Street, the old road that parallels the Delaware River. Also, according to early nineteenth century sources, the village was the last place where rafts that carried goods from the upper part of the province could stop above the tide on the river.
A story on the origins of the town, then called Yardleyville, published in the February 3, 1857, Bucks County Intelligencer stated, “William Yardley and family came from Rushton Spensor, in Staffordshire, in the Friend’s Adventure, and arrived here the 28th of 7th month, 1682. Before his departure from England, he received a grant of 500 acres of Penn, the 21st of March, 1681, which was located at this place the 6th of 8th month, 1682. He was an uncle of Phineas Pemberton, a member of Assembly in 1683, and a Justice of the county in 1689. After his death, his son, Thomas Yardley, came in possession of his land on the Delaware, and established a ferry here, which was subsequently confirmed and vested in his right by an act of Assembly in 1722. He was for a long time Justice of the Peace. In consequence, this place was long known as Yardley’s Ferry, which, at a later day, was changed to Yardleyville. The road from Newtown to this place was laid out in 1734.”
The history of Yardley is much more complex. The site initially developed in the first quarter of the 18th century but its actual rapid growth did not occur until between 1790 and 1810. Transportation was the key for its sustained growth. The hamlet received a boost between 1830 and 1850 following the opening of the Delaware Canal and the construction of a bridge over the Delaware River. Another surge happened between 1870 and 1890 when the North Pennsylvania Railroad ran a line, and opened a station, just south of the established village. In 1876, the railroad named their station Yardley rather than Yardleyville. The simpler name was officially adopted when the town was incorporated as a borough in 1894/95.
Yardley continued to be an important regional transportation hub in the early 20th century when the Yardley, Morrisville and Trenton Street Railway Company, which had been chartered in 1899, were connected to the Newtown-Yardley trolley line in 1903. Commuters could travel via the line from any point along the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River from Bristol to New Hope and on into New Jersey through Trenton and Lambertville; and or to Doylestown, the county seat, and then on to Easton or Bristol and on to Philadelphia. A large powerhouse, since converted into a food market, was constructed by the trolley company on the site of the old saw mill and lumberyard near the center of town.
Thomas Yardley, who came to America in 1704 to oversee the family's interests, eventually owned over a thousand acres of land in the Yardley vicinity, along with property in other parts of the county. However, he was not the original owner of the land that now includes his homestead, the mill, and much of the borough. In 1713, there is the specific notation of mills, mill pond and mill races in the deed when Brock sold the Lakeside 223 acre property to John Lambert of New Jersey in 1713. John Lambert purchased an additional land in 1715. After John Lambert died, his brother Thomas sold the two tracts, totaling 473 acres to Thomas Yardley.
In 1752, Thomas Yardley, Sr. gave most of his property to his two sons Thomas and William. His eldest son William received almost 1,000 acres as well as a quarter interest in the grist mill situated on a tract of 27 ½ acres. Thomas Yardley, Jr. received three quarter interest in the grist mill with the remainder of the former Lambert property. In the deeds to his sons, Thomas Yardley reserved the use of a tract of 2 ¾ acres with “the mansion, or dwelling house thereon erected.” When the elder Thomas Yardley died, the mansion property descended to his son Thomas. William sold his interest in the mill to his brother in 1773.
Thomas Yardley, Sr.’s will was written in 1754 and probated in 1756. In addition to giving his sons William and Thomas his lands in Lower Makefield, he gave his grist and sawmill in Solebury Township to his son Samuel Yardley. The will includes the disposition of his ten slaves. Thomas wrote that William should receive Charles and Tom; his son Thomas should get Isaac and Jem; Samuel received Dan, Bob, and Jo; and his daughter Sarah received the girl Nancy. He then added that his son Thomas should also receive Old Nancy and Flora “so long as Old Nancy shall live and after Old Nancy's death then Flora to have her choice to live with either my son William or Thomas or Samuel and there to live and remain until she shall arrive to the age of thirty five years, and then to be set free and at liberty.” No explanation for Flora's special treatment and manumission was given.
In 1794, Thomas Yardley sold the grist mill with over four hundred acres encompassing most of the core of the town to Cornelius Vansant in 1794. The grist mill property deed gave the buyer “the privilege of rafting and boating, importing and exporting...all such logs, lumber, grain and flower (sic) as occasion may require for the use of the said mills forever. So as not to injure the said Thomas Yardley, his heirs, or assigns in the same kind of business or ferrying.” Two days later, Cornelius Vansant sold almost half of the tract to Joshua Vanhorn. By the last decade of the 18 century, the name "Yardley town" was used in the will of one of the town's residents.
In 1800, six years after selling the mill, Yardley sold the “the ferry on the Pennsylvania side of the River Delaware called and long known as Yardley's Ferry...with the tavern and ferry house...” on twenty-five acres. Less than two weeks after selling the ferry tract, Thomas Yardley sold an adjoining tract of forty-one acres situate between the river and the “road along the river.” Between 1794 and 1810 these large tracts were subdivided into numerous small lots. Local historian W.W.H. Davis stated in his History of Bucks County that the site was transformed “into what Americans call a village about 1807.” The village became known as Yardleyville after the creation of a post office by that name in 1828.
Cornelius Vansant sold the mill and 47 acres to William R. Atlee and Peter DeHaven in 1805. Over next two decades new partners were brought in and out and numerous small lots were sold to various purchasers stimulating the growth of the village. The development of the village accelerated when the property was confiscated sold at sheriff's sale in 1822.
William Jr. and Courtland Yardley eventually bought the mill and approximately 30 acres for $12,500. On April 4, 1831 the two men, trading as C. Yardley & Co. announced in the Bucks County Intelligencer that they had purchased the mills and would continue to grind grist and saw bills of scantling and would open an iron store and coal yard. In addition, they would operate a storehouse for the sale of produce on the canal.
A walk through Yardley reveals 300 plus years of history. The core of the town is the crossroads of Main Street and Afton Avenue. This intersection is located approximately one quarter mile inland from the river itself. The location of Main Street reflects the fact that the Delaware River traditionally floods over its banks at Yardley. To avoid flooding, the main area of development was several hundred yards inland along Main Street, specifically South Main Street, giving the town a linear configuration. This pattern was even more firmly entrenched after the canal was constructed. The canal lays several hundred feet easterly of Main Street and has historically defined the easternmost boundary of the town. Yardley has a different look than many other Bucks County towns where the streetscapes are predominately buildings made of stone and brick. The majority of the buildings in Yardley are wood frame construction.
Beautiful Lake Afton is a key aesthetic element in Yardley appeal. Located on the northwest corner of North Main Street and West Afton Avenue, the lake was originally a mill pond created in the 18th century. Its presence not only forms a physical and visual break in the center of town, but its aesthetic appeal has also shaped development along its perimeter. Thomas Yardley's stone mansion “Lakeside” was built in the early 18th century near his mills on North Main Street overlooking the lake. The house has a gambrel roof hidden by stepped gables. This appearance can be seen on a lithograph on the 1858 map of Lower Makefield Township. It is unique in Bucks County. The house stayed in the Yardley family until 1958. Near Lakeside the enlarged and renovated Yardley grist mill helps define the North Main Street streetscape.
Lake Afton was also a prime consideration in the development along West Afton Avenue. The houses with their commanding views of the lake are larger residences situated on larger lots compared to those on the town's other streets. The town's library, a picturesque Victorian Gothic structure highlighted by lancet windows, was built in 1878 on a sliver of land between the lake and the street. It is now the home of the Yardley Historic Association. Further to the west of the library, also on the north side of the road, is the brownstone St. Andrews Church constructed in 1889-90 and the stone parish house constructed in 1914. The lake and the structures built to take advantage of the setting it created give West Afton Avenue its distinctly gracious Victorian setting. The buildings along East Afton Avenue present the highest concentration of stone houses in the town and mirror the street's pre-canal development. There are several stone buildings here, which are rare in Yardley.
The majority of the buildings in Yardley lie on South Main Street. This street has a traditional small town feeling. Both sides of the street are lined with closely set buildings. Here one can find the brick Colonial Revival Post Office and Borough Hall constructed in 1916 as well as the stone fire engine house. At the south end of town are larger and more ornate Queen Anne style houses that reflect the boom of the railroad era.
Canal Street runs parallel to the Delaware Canal east of South Main Street. Canal Street does not run between East College Avenue and Letchworth Avenue. This effectively forms two separate streets with the same name. The branch of Canal Street between Afton and College Avenues was opened in 1840 and is dominated by a number of houses dating from that period. The portion of Canal Street south of Letchworth Avenue runs through a section of Yardley once known as the Boatyard. It is called that in 1855, when Charles Yardley's estate was being divided. With the death of Charles Yardley and the general decline in the canal boatbuilding industry, the yard was subdivided and houses erected. Like the upper section of Canal Street, it is dominated by small houses on tiny lots unlike the larger houses on nearby South Main Street. In keeping with the socio-economic trends of the nineteenth century, the small, Yardley-Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church was built on this stretch of Canal Street in 1877.
Sitting along the banks of the Delaware River, Yardley contains buildings that span from simple vernacular houses to larger and more ornate ones, with the rich diversity of style, including Second Empire, Queen Anne, and enhanced Victorian Gothic that gives the town its own sense of time and place. It is town that looks like it came right out of a Currier and Ives print, a place to ice skate on Lake Afton and be proud of the Yardley ducks.