Doylestown Became Bucks County Seat Due To Central Location

Doylestown became the seat of Bucks County 200 years ago for three good reasons: Location, location, location.

Newtown, the county seat since 1726, was larger than the village of Doylestown, but it was difficult to reach from the central and upper sections of the county.

Even today, it is not the easiest thing in the world to drive the 30 miles from Quakertown to Newtown. Imagine what it was like in 1800, when roads were unpaved tracks that turned into mud when it rained and clouds of dust when it was dry. A trip to the faraway courthouse, where civil and criminal sessions were held four times a year, could require an overnight journey by a horse and wagon.

When Bucks County was founded in 1683, the county seat was in Falls Township. Bristol became the county seat in 1705, but that was considered too distant as the population spread northward. A new courthouse was built in Newtown in 1726.

After the American Revolution, farmers and merchants in northern Bucks began petitioning the Pennsylvania Legislature to move the county seat to a more central location.

More than half of the county's 27,489 residents lived outside lower Bucks in 1800, according to that year's census.

A proposal to replace the obsolete courthouse and county buildings in Newtown with new ones in the same location generated tremendous opposition in central and upper Bucks, and prompted more pressure on the Legislature to authorize a new county seat.

"Your petitioners have long labored under the great disadvantage of having the courts of justice held in a place very uncentral in Bucks County," read one petition submitted to the Legislature. "The present courthouse and prison are old and decaying and must soon be rebuilt from foundation, which makes the present a proper time to apply to your honorable house for leave to build a courthouse and prison at Doylestown, a village nearly central, a place, remarkably healthy and pleasant, situate at the crossroads of several very public roads, and is capable of much improvement."

The Legislature finally passed a law in 1810 authorizing the appointment of three commissioners, who had to be from other counties, to select a new site for the Bucks County seat. The governor appointed Edward Darlington of Chester County, Gabriel Heister of Berks County and Nicholas Kern of Northampton County.

The law mandated the county seat could not be more than three miles from Bradshaw's Corner (now Pool's Corner at Routes 202 and 313), the geographical center of the county.

The commissioners, who were paid $3 a day during the selection process, considered three locations: Bradshaw's Corner, the Turk (a tavern then at Easton and Turk roads), and Doylestown.

Meeting on May 12, 1810, the commissioners unanimously chose Doylestown. That same day, Nathaniel Shewell gave the county land for the courthouse and jail, slightly more than two acres in a triangle bounded by today's Main, Court and Broad streets. This was the highest point in the village.

Doylestown a thriving crossroads

In 1810, Doylestown was a thriving crossroads with about 200 residents. The village was divided between New Britain Township, north of today's Court Street, and Warwick Township to the south.

Besides its central location, Doylestown offered some of the amenities needed for a county seat, including stagecoach service and inns where lawyers and others could stay during court sessions.

William Doyle built the first tavern in 1745 at the intersection of the roads from Round Meadow (now Willow Grove) to the Forks of the Delaware (now Easton) and from Coryell's Ferry (now New Hope) to the Fords of the Schuylkill (now Norristown). Today's Fountain House, at Main and State streets, is the approximate site of Doyle's tavern.

A second tavern, first called the "Bull's Head" and later "The Ship," was built in 1774 catercorner from Doyle's establishment. (The Ship Tavern was torn down in 1874 and replaced by Lenape Hall.)

The first stagecoach, from Easton to Philadelphia, passed through Doylestown on April 29, 1792. By 1800, there were three competing stagecoach lines. One ran to Philadelphia on Monday and to Easton on Thursday for a one-way fare of $2. As a transportation "hub," Doylestown attracted residents and businesses.

The village got its first newspaper, the "Farmers' Weekly Gazette" in 1800, but that did not last long. Asher Miner, a printer from Connecticut, came to Doylestown and published the first edition of the weekly "Pennsylvania Correspondent and Farmers' Weekly Advertiser" on Jully 7, 1804. This was the predecessor of today's Intelligencer.

There was even a school, the Union Academy, founded by the Rev. Uriah DuBois in 1804 and located at today's Court and Broad streets.

New courthouse constructed

On March 23, 1811, the county commissioners inserted the following advertisement in the Pennsylvania Correspondent:

"NEW COUNTY BUILDINGS PROPOSALS In writing for furnishing material and for Mechanics and Workmen, for the erection of the necessary PUBLIC BUILDINGS at Doylestown, will be received by the Board of Commissioners, on the EIGHTH day of APRIL next, at 10 o'clock in the forenoon, at the house of Enoch Harvey...By Order of the Board, JAMES CHAPMAN, Clerk."

The commissioners subsequently awarded a contract. Work began on Oct. 8, 1811 with the digging of a well under the direction of Nathaniel Shewell. The well, which cost $351.85, was completed on March 28, 1812.

Construction of the courthouse then got under way.

"The sound of hammer and the hum of business may be witnessed in the public grounds in this village," stated a brief article in the Pennsylvania Correspondent on April 13, 1812. "The carpenters and masons commenced their operations during the last week under the superintendence of Jonathan Smith, Esq., sheds for the workmen are erected and the cellar for the Court House is progressing. May success attend their exertions."

Smith, a newly elected county commissioner, was paid $150 for designing the courthouse and adjacent jail. He was construction superintendent until November, and received $254.03 for his services.

Masons, carpenters, blacksmiths, tinsmiths, painters and other workmen--who typically earned around $1.25 a day--labored into the spring of 1813. The courthouse was finished by the end of April, although it is not clear if the jail was also completed by then. Both buildings cost $38,007. The two-story brick and stone courthouse, in the Federal architectural style, was distinguished by an pedimented entrance with four columns and a gilded cupola.

The last court session in Newtown was held in March 1813, although other county business was conducted there until early May. The following advertisement first appeared in the Pennsylvania Correspondent on April 26, 1813:

"PUBLIC NOTICE. Whereas, the Records and Papers in the Register and Recorder's and Prothonotary's Offices in Newtown, will soon be packed up for their Removal to their new apartments in Doylestown--the public are hereby informated that no business will be done in those offices from the 10th to the 24th of May next; and that the next COURT will be held at Doylestown on the 31st of said month of May--of which all Justices of the Peace, Constables, etc. will take notice."

County records consisted of bound books of court dockets, wills, deeds, lawsuits and other documents, as well as loose papers. These were loaded into horse-drawn wagons and taken to Doylestown.

Bird Wilson, the county's only judge, held the the first court session in the new courthouse on May 31, 1813. There were some proceedings in the Orphans' Court and several "road juries" (which decided what properties to take for roads) were appointed.

The old courthouse in Newtown was later sold for $1,650.

Proposed division of county

Only eight practicing lawyers lived in Bucks County in 1813. Six of them moved to Doylestown and vicinity so they could be near the new courthouse.

One of these lawyers was Abraham Chapman, who bought a small shop at Main and Broad streets. Chapman would become the first burgess (mayor) of Doylestown when the village was incorporated as a borough in 1838. His son, Henry Chapman, built a house next to the shop in 1846 (today's ). Abraham Chapman's great-grandson, Henry Chapman Mercer, was born there in 1856.

While the courthouse was in New Britain Township, some law offices across Court Street were in Warwick Township. The awkwardness of having a county seat divided between two townships led to the creation in 1818 of Doylestown Township, which comprised land taken from New Britain, Warwick and Buckingham townships. Doylestown Township, including the village of Doylestown, had 1,430 residents in 1820.

Despite the establishment of the new county seat, some dissatisfied residents of lower Bucks made repeated efforts during the next four decades to split Bucks County in two.

The final attempt was made in 1855, when a proposal to create "Penn County" was submitted to the Legislature. This would have consisted of 13 lower Bucks townships, from Bristol to Wrightstown, and six neighboring townships from what was then Philadelphia County.

The House of Representatives passed a bill to authorize the division, but it was defeated in a Senate committee. This laid the matter to rest, and Doylestown has been the seat of an undivided Bucks County ever since.