New Hope

by Jeffrey L. Marshall

Tourists stream into this small Bucks County borough daily to enjoy the architecture, the shops, the Playhouse, the galleries and the restaurants. New Hope has energy, vitality, a cache and long and a fascinating history. In fact, to people across the country, New Hope is Bucks County. It symbolizes the beauty and history of Bucks County like no other place.

The village of New Hope grew up along the banks of the Delaware River where the Aquetong Creek flows into it. Like Bristol, Morrisville and Yardley the site had an early ferry and gristmill to stimulate growth. When Richard Heath received his patent in 1710 for two, 500-hundred acre tracts that were to become New Hope, one tract was called the “mill tract” and the other, the “ferry tract”.

By the 1750s the village boasted a ferry, inn, forge and grist, saw, fulling, rolling, and slitting mill. The York Road crossed the Delaware River here, and the site became an important point on a major transportation route. During the eighteenth century, the village was known by the names of the various ferry keepers. New Hope was Wells’ Ferry until to 1770, after which it was called Coryell’s Ferry. Numerous documents make reference to as Coryell’s Ferry during the Revolutionary period.

The ferry crossing the Delaware at this point was a critical factor in the town’s development. Ferries had to be licensed. John Wells was the first licensed ferryman and was there in 1715. At the conclusion of this term the sons of William Penn renewed it again, and he was to pay an annual rent of 40 shillings. John Wells’ will was dated July 16th, 1748, and he left his farm of 145 acres to William Kitchen, his probable son-in-law.

To finish this article on New Hope, go to page 84 in the Summer 2013 issue of Bucks County Magazine.