Nockamixon

Nockamixon was organized in 1742.  Early settlers: Richard Thatcher, Joseph Warford, Christian Weaver, John Henry Hite, William Morris, John Harwick, Uriah Kemble, David Buckherd, Bartholomew Longstreth, Samuel Cruchler, Jacob Richards, Thomas Blair, William Ware, John Anderson, Edmund Bleney, John Doran, John Wilson, George Ledley, William Dickson, James Johnson, Richard Loudon, John Colvan, Ralph Wilson, Jacob Trimbo, and Thomas Ramsey. The original settlers were English speaking and the Germans overran the township subsequently.

The name of Nockamixon is of Indian origin (the place at the three houses). On the back of the petition to the court, asking to have the township organized, is written the following couplet:₂
 

As rocks in Nockamixon mate the skies,
So let this town to Nockamixon rise,"

Bucks County Intelligencer April 8, 1876, Removals and changes      PHOTOS        Revolutionary Burial Site        In Search of the Prickly Pear

HARROW The village and tavern were called_In coaching days it was described in mail stage advertisements as located "at the end of the river road," and was a regular stopping place for the Philadelphia and easton stages. Harrow from the fixture of a harrow on the tavern sign board. The inn building dates from around 1720, the first innkeeper was probably John Wilson, grandson of trader Ralph Wilson.

BUCKSVILLE_One of the earliest of the villages founded in the township. Nicholas Buck, whose father arrived from Germany around 1752, was a wheelwright by trade. He settled in Nockamixon in 1792, purchasing 64 acres including the site of Bucksville. It became a thriving German community with a blacksmith shop and a large stone house, which today is a bed and breakfast known as the Bucksville House. Local history has it that the hotel was a speakeasy during Prohibition.

REVERE_Jacob Buck, Nockamixon Township tax collector, established the Sorrel Horse Inn in what would become Revere around 1800. He sold the inn to his brother John around 1818, who replaced the log inn with a substantial stone structure. Later John Rufe, son of George, owned and operated what became known as Rufe's Tavern. George had purchased 176 acres in the area in 1798.

The original building burned in 1850 , was rebuilt with the store by William Rufe, destroyed by fire in 1918. Jacob Black was the landlord at the time, and Harry Kiefer was the owner of the store. It was later rebuilt; the hotel being then known as the Hotel Paul Revere. Fire destroyed that building in 1959 and was not rebuilt.

FERNDALE_Formerly known as Rum's Corner because of the distillery in the area. The present day Ferndale Inn building dates back to pre-1827, as it was listed then as part of the Michael Meisser estate. Michael Meisser was a settler, and owned land on the hill above Ferndale prior to 1753. The Center Hill Schoolhouse, now a private residence on Center Hill Road near the township building, was part of that tract.

KINTNERSVILLE_Largest community in the township. Jacob Froelich of Bethlehem was the first owner of land in the village. He purchased 101 acres in 1743 from Thomas and Richard Penn. In 1749 George Gintner (Kintner) settled in the hills of Nockamixon Township. After serving in the Revolutionary War he entered the pottery business. He sold supplies to the Durham Iron Furnace until it blew up in 1792, after which he left the area.

His son Jacob moved back to Bucks County in 1812. Jacob purchased the property where Kintnersville now sits from Jacob Froelich Jr. for $26.75. Kintnersville was the site of the first gas station in Upper Bucks County and the first telephone was installed in 1910.

The village of Kintnersville was named for the prominent German family of Kintner, a race of fighters and politicians. Although probably coming from the same province in Germany, the immigrant Kintners seem to have entered this country through different ports. The name was spelled several ways, commonly Gunter, Guntar, Gunther, and Gunther, changed by some of the family branches to Kintner after arrival in this country. The ancestor of the Bucks County Kintners seems to have been Georg Gunther, who arrived in Philadelphia on the ship Chance, Captain Charles Smith, in 1763.³

 

NARROWSVILLE_was a small hamlet at the lower end of the narrows on the Delaware River. The narrowsville Hotel was established in 1820, and was a stagecoach stop on the Easton-Morrisville Line. It was also a stop for canal barges in the mid to late 1800s, and had a blacksmith shop and stables alongside. The hotel, now known as the Indian Rock Inn, is sheltered at the base of the Palisades cliffs. The Palisades cliffs are home to rare species of alpine plants and have been studied by many eminent botanists.