by Jeffrey L. Marshall
There are actually two Newtowns. Newtown is the name of both a borough and township located in the central, southern portion of Bucks County. What is know as the “town of Newtown”, lies in both the borough and township and contains a rich mixture of Colonial and Victorian architecture. Newtown Borough was created in 1838. William Penn may actually have given Newtown the name to the site. It is one of only three place names noted on Penn’s original seventeenth century maps of the county. The surrounding Newtown Township is a more contemporary suburban region with individual historic houses and barns.
Newtown was undoubtedly Bucks County’s first planned community. In the early 1680s the township of Newtown was laid out with a “townstead” at its center. This was a large square that was divided into small rectangular lots. Each settler was allowed a lot within the central townstead equal to ten percent of the land he bought in the township. Located in the very middle of the square was a town common. This was designed as a 30-acre central park that was owned by the entire community running on both sides of Newtown Creek.
From 1726 to 1812 Newtown served as Bucks County’s county seat. This span of 86 years must have been the most active and certainly the most interesting period in Newtown’s history. The activity actually began several years earlier. On March 24, 1724, the General Assembly of the Province of Pennsylvania passed an act authorizing the purchase of five acres of land “in some convenient place in Newtown” for the erection of a court house and jail. A courthouse was built on what is now the west side of Court Street and faced Centre Avenue.
As the county seat, Newtown played a strategic role during the Revolutionary War. Newtown not only had the courthouse and jail, but also housed the county treasury. The treasury proved to be an irresistible temptation to the Doan gang, a band of Tory sympathizers, who terrorized the countryside during the Revolutionary War. On the night of October 22, 1781, the Doan gang rode into town and broke into the house of County Treasurer John Hart who lived on State Street. They captured Hart and after ransacking his house, forced him to take them to the county treasury where they promptly relieved it of its entire contents.
This was not the only Revolutionary War activity to occur in Newtown. Newtown briefly served as General Washington’s headquarters during the period of time when he led the famous 1776 Christmas Day attack on the Hessian soldiers in Trenton. After his success at Trenton, Washington’s army and the captured Hessian prisoners returned to Newtown. Many of the Hessian prisoners were held in the Presbyterian Church on Sycamore Street.
Newtown’s third major Revolutionary event did not end so well for the Americans. In February 1778, about forty British Light Dragoons under the command of Newtown resident Richard Hovenden marched against his former home. The troops captured a fulling mill in Middletown (now under Lake Luxembourg) needed by the American army, and went on to Newtown where in a skirmish they wounded nine men and captured Major Francis Murray and about 30 soldiers. Unfortunately, for Murray, who was home visiting his family, this was the second time during the war he had been captured. He had previously been captured at Fort Washington in October 1776 and released the following December.
Moving ahead almost one hundred years, Newtown became a busy Victorian period town. An article in the April 4, 1871 edition of the Bucks County Intelligencer sums up the bustling town: “There is one National bank, one private bank, one manufactory of agricultural implements and foundry, one planing mill and blind and sash factory, one tanner and currier, one brick and tile manufactory, and one carriage manufactory. There are nineteen stores—four large country stores, one of trimmings and fancy work, hardware, iron &c., stoves and tinware, two of drugs two of furniture, watch-maker and jeweler, green grocery, bread and cakes, boots and shoes, confectionery and ice cream, merchant tailor, tobacco and segars [cigars], groceries and liquors, one coal yard, one pump maker, one grist mill, one newspaper and job printing office, real estate and conveyancer’s office, one surveyor and conveyancer’s office, one fire insurance company, one lawyer, five doctors, two dentists, one temperance hotel and oyster and ice cream saloon, three licensed hotels, four restaurants, two livery stables, four firms of carpenters and builders, six carpenter shops, two cabinet makers, four tailor shops, three of harness makers, four of shoe makers, three of blacksmiths, country work; two of wheelwrights, two of house painters, one carpet weaver, one barber and hairdressing saloon. There are also in the town three churches, a Friends’ meeting house, two public schools, three private schools, a good library, established in 1760; a reading room, a literary society, five secret societies and gas works.” From this list it appears that Newtown is a place of considerable business importance.
The town of Newtown is laid out in a grid pattern. Sycamore Street and State Street run north to south with the Newtown Creek running between them. The main east-west street is Washington Avenue. What really sets Newtown apart is its architecture. Newtown’s earliest buildings were constructed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, most of the original buildings, such as the courthouse and many private residences, were replaced in the nineteenth century. Newtown of today is primarily a Victorian period town with individual Colonial period stone houses dotting the streetscape, particularly along State Street and Court Street. Generally speaking, Newtown grew in an easterly direction from Court Street along both sides of Washington Avenue. As the town needed more land for its growing population, a series of streets were laid out in both directions from Washington Avenue.
Newtown boomed in the decades after the Civil War. Standardized goods produced in factories made complex house components such as doors, cornices, windows and bargeboard inexpensive and easy to obtain. The railroad brought these products to Newtown. The face of buildings in the town changed dramatically in 1868 with the opening of Worstall’s brickyard. From this time on, many of the major buildings in the town were constructed of brick.
Newtown has numerous wonderful examples of colonial period and Federal architecture. The core of eighteenth century Newtown is Court Street. Today one can still get the feeling of early life in Newtown by strolling down this narrow street which parallels the nineteenth century “Main Street” of town known as State Street. State Street still retains many old stone houses interspaced between later, larger, brick buildings. One of the neat buildings along State Street is the town hall. Newtown’s borough hall was designed to resemble a Greek temple (and was originally stuccoed to replicate the marble of a Greek temple).
The predominant style found between 1840 and 1870 was the Gothic Revival. This style was epitomized by Gothic cottages, which were romantic, literary, and sentimental in origin. Steep gables and pointed windows, decorated porches and bay windows highlighted homes. Gothic Revival houses can be found on Washington Avenue as well as on many side streets.
By the last quarter of the century, a style based on the Second French Empire of Napoleon III, took hold in Newtown. A number of houses on Chancellor Street and elsewhere were built with a slate “French” or Mansard roof with dormers. Some Second French Empire houses were built of masonry laid up in a “free stone” power. Many had towered, projecting pavilions.
The most famous Victorian period style was perhaps the Queen Anne style. This style was first widely introduced in America in 1876 with the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The Queen Anne avoided flat exterior wall surfaces through the use of projecting bays, overhangs, towers and turrets. Adding to a polychromatic character was the use of brick, stone, stucco, terra cotta and wood that contrasted in color and texture as well as stained glass windows found on a number of Newtown’s large houses along Washington Avenue, Chancellor Street and Lincoln Avenue. Lincoln Avenue’s opening in 1873 coincided with the growth in popularity of this new style of architecture.
The Half Moon Inn (also known as the as the Court Inn) is now the home of the Newtown Historic Association and is one of the oldest and most historic buildings in Newtown. It was built in 1733 as a tavern when Newtown was the County Seat. Joseph Thornton conducted a tavern here until his death in 1754, when his wife, Margaret Thornton, then took over the business until 1790. In the 1890s, the local telephone company purchased the building and subdivided it into two separate units. The Newtown Historic Association was the recipient of the north portion of the property in 1964. Ten years later, the NHA purchased the south and fully restored it in 1982.
At the present time, the Half Moon Inn contains the tavern room, the room behind it where the original Thornton family lived as well as other several rooms that have been restored to their original décor. The second floor houses a research center open to the public, as well as the Edward Hicks room, that displays one of the artist’s famous tavern signs as well as many of his personal items.
Located at the town’s main intersection of State Street and Washington Avenue is the Brick Hotel. The original portion of the Brick Hotel was originally built by Amos Strickland as his mansion house before 1770. It became a tavern around the end of the eighteenth century. In 1829, Joseph Archambault constructed the three-story addition. He was a tinsmith, dentist, hotel operator and land speculator—all after having served as one of Napoleon’s trusted aides. Next to the Brick Hotel is the circa 1901 Newtown Fire Association’s engine house. The recent renovations to the building on Liberty Street includes a small museum highlighting the town’s fire fighting history that can be traced back to at least 1824.
Located along tree-lined South State Street is an old frame building with the charming name of the Bird-in-Hand. The Bird in Hand (formerly the "Red Lion Inn" and "Old Frame House") has played a rich and diverse role in the history of Newtown. The building served as a tavern from 1727 to 1858. According to the Newtown Historic Association marker on the site, there is record of a tavern on this site dating back to 1686, and it is considered the oldest frame structure still standing in Pennsylvania. The Inn was the site of the Tory raid, which was the only Revolutionary War action to take place in Newtown. Following the Battle of Trenton in December 1776, George Washington's Continental soldiers used The Bird in Hand as an overflow jail to hold Hessian officers before marching them to Philadelphia. The name was changed in 1817 after Edward Hicks painted a sign representing Benjamin Franklin's adage, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”
Another iconic building along South State Street is the Temperance House. The first part of present building was probably built about 1772 by Andrew McMinn. After serving as a tavern for many years, the owner embraced the temperance movement and in around 1865 it became known as the Niagara Temperance House. Attached to the old stone building is a tall brick structure designed by Bucks County architect Thomas Cernea for a stove business. Cernea designed this building for Major Joseph B. Roberts. The July 11, 1874 Newtown Enterprise extolled the virtues of the building stating that “The new three story brick building of Joseph B. Roberts, on State Street is a model one, and well adapted to the purpose for which it is intended. The basement will be used for blacking and repairing stoves; the first floor will contain samples of different varieties of heaters, ranges, stoves, tin-ware, etc., and has a cosey [sic] private office in the rear; the second story will be occupied as a store room; and the room on the third floor will be used s a workshop by the tinsmiths. The goods will be transferred from one story to another by means of an elevator. A speaking tube has been placed in the building; a substantial open stairway leads to the second story; and from a large tank in the third story the building is supplied with water. It will be occupied by the firm of Roberts & Feaster next week.” Cernea also designed the Newtown Cemetery Chapel, the Bunting residence at 28 South Chancellor Street and the Newtown Enterprise Building at 126 South State Street as well as numerous buildings in Doylestown.
Newtown’s charm extends well beyond its main streets. At the intersection of Centre Avenue and South Congress Street is a brick Colonial Revival building that has been the home of the Newtown Library since 1912. The Newtown Library Company was founded on August 9, 1760. Incorporation was granted by a special act of the Pennsylvania Legislature, approved March 27, 1789. The books were kept at private homes of the various librarians from 1760 until after the County seat was removed to Doylestown in 1813. The books were housed in the old Court House building until 1824 when the first library building was constructed. In 1883, a second building was constructed at Court St. and Centre Avenue across from the Half Moon Tavern. In 1912 the library moved to its present building. One of the outstanding features of the library is its sign. In 1825 Edward Hicks, the famous Newtown primitive artist was commissioned to paint a sign for library. Incorporating a famous portrait of Benjamin Franklin the sign portrays Franklin as a studious, and prosperous, man of science, seated amongst his books and papers.
With their unmatched collection of large, historic houses, Chancellor Street and Lincoln Avenue are virtual tours of Victorian America. As grand houses were being built after the Civil War along Chancellor Street, the Newtown Enterprise proclaimed in 1870, the improvements “will make this street to Newtown, what Fifth Avenue is to New York.” Several years later, Lincoln Avenue was opened as a grand boulevard. A number of Newtown’s most ornate houses were constructed by local builder David J. McClanen. In 1894, he built two houses on North Lincoln Avenue and in 1895-96 alone McClanen commenced the erection of three frame dwellings on the same street; one of them on a lot of his own (possibly 110 North Lincoln), one for Edward Horne (28 North Lincoln) and one for James T. Keith (155 North Lincoln). “Mr. McClanen’s force of mechanics have been busy all winter on these houses are now about completed, and within a week past all have been occupied. They have been well built in every particular and are among the most substantial structures in town, and reflect great credit on their builder. J. B. Chamberlain (Chamberlin) was the architect of all three houses. The design of Edward Horne’s house is very different from any other residence in town and is much admired by many who have seen it. Both these houses are heated by hot water. Mr. McClanen’s house is wired for electric lighting, and Horne’s has been piped for the use of acetylene, which will be used as soon as that new illuminant is available. “Mr. McClanen might be styled the father [of this section of town], as he has built nearly all the house in that locality.”
Above all, Newtown is a walkable town. The visitors’ experience is enhanced by the Newtown Historic Association’s historic marker program allows visitors to learn about key properties throughout the town.
Jeffrey L. Marshall is a Bucks County historian and the president of the Heritage Conservancy.