This column, we’ll take a look at the swamp area of Nockamixon, Bridgeton and Tinicum Townships. In a paper presented to the Bucks County Historical Society in 1910, Dr. Robert Buehrle described the area as it had been when he was growing up there in the mid-1800s.

As a small boy, he had witnessed the huge influx of immigrants escaping political unrest in Germany. Mostly Roman Catholic in faith, they quickly settled the area as farmers, built a church and parochial school on Marienstein Road, and got along well with their English Quaker and Irish neighbors. High-spirited and industrious, they transformed the swampy land into fertile fields, fenced with stones they had dug while cultivating.

During many of these “lot clearings,” neighbors would gather and help with the backbreaking work. In return, the farmer would supply plenty of whiskey (which then cost about 8-10 cents per quart), and his wife would feed them all. When the work was done and all had eaten, they frequently danced all night in what was called a “frolic.”

Hard to believe it when you drive through now, but then this area was a bustling commercial district. Nockamixon in 1876 boasted two dry goods and grocery dealers, a physician, stonemason, liquor dealer, and two blacksmiths. Kintnersville was home to a flour, feed and lumber mill, an assessor, stone hacker and butcher, a hotel, and its own dry goods dealer. There were three potteries, which manufactured Bucks County redware, now much sought-after by collectors.

Bucksville also had a hotel (now a Bed and Breakfast, rumored to be haunted), grocery store, carriage maker, Justice of the Peace, and a stagecoach headquarters. All three townships had more than their share of farms and dairying operations.

From 1832 until the railroad came in, most boys and men not occupied on farms went to work as boatmen for the Delaware Division canal. From early April till mid-December, they plied the waters from Lehigh and Easton to New Hope and Bristol. Sixty- to one hundred-ton loads of anthracite coal, iron ore, sand, lumber and general merchandise were pulled by mules and horses, and families lived right on the square-fronted scows.

Children went to schools such as Mine-Spring (opposite Milford, New Jersey), Rapp’s School in Kintnersville, Rufe’s school in Revere, Cedar Grove, and on Rocky Ridge in Tinicum. School terms were four months long, but boat boys rarely attended more than three.