Buttonwood Street Home was Once a Stable across Bridge Street at the Old Hip-Roof House

Buttonwood Street in New Hope is just one block north on Chestnut Street from Bridge Street. This article will focus on one home on Buttonwood, but also remark on other interesting properties nearby. The subject home on Buttonwood was once a stable located on the Bridge Street property now known as the Wedgwood Inn Bed and Breakfast. The inn is clearly visible from Buttonwood Street. At a recent visit to the property on Buttonwood the current owner related that the stable was built in 1833, and at least partially supporting that assertion was the hand-hewn post and beam construction found under the walls during modern renovations. Such construction was most common from the mid-17th to the mid-19th centuries.


As stated in our earlier "Beyond the Door" article about the Wedgwood Inn, the building now housing the inn was constructed in 1870 on the stone foundation of an earlier "old hip-roof" house built in 1720. The Buttonwood property owner says the stable was moved to its current location in the 1940's or 1950's and then was used by a blacksmith, and later an upholsterer. In 1958 it was converted to a home. If the stable dates to 1833, it must have been present during the time of both the original 1720 house as well as the still extant 1870 building now housing the Wedgwood Inn.


Wedgwood Inn owner Carl Glassman related in an interview for this article, that when he and his wife acquired the future Wedgwood property in 1982, there was evidence of a barn foundation to the rear of the house at the southwest corner. For purposes of this article "stable" and "barn" will be used interchangeably.


This would be located similarly to a like structure on the next-door Umpleby House. Glassman relates that the original driveway would have passed near the house and reached the stable entrance just behind it. Glassman also states that a prior owner of the later Wegwood Inn intended to build his own new home in the area of the barn (perhaps tearing down the 1870 house), but that plan never came to fruition. The barn location is now paved and the foundation remains are no longer visible.

The 1948 Franklin Survey Company map of Solebury and New Hope does not yet show the presence of Buttonwood Street, though Chestnut Street seems to be shown, but not named there. Immediately west of the end of Buttonwood Street is the historic Paxson Estate, Maple Grove, containing the mansion adjacent to the New Hope Solebury High School and still visible today from Bridge Street. Per the archival records, held at the New Hope Historical Society, the original land was purchased by Thomas Paxson about 1763 and grew to 634 acres. The land extended to the Delaware River. Maps from 1876 and 1891 show that Paxson descendants still own substantial acreage. 


A Paxson descendant, and current resident of Maple Grove, Dr. George Rhoads, was also interviewed for this article. Dr. Rhoads believes his grandparents sold off lots on Chestnut and Buttonwood Streets to help further his father's college education. According to local legend, there used to be a large Chestnut tree on Maple Grove, either near or on the current location of Buttonwood and Chestnut Streets, which was used by George Washington to tie up his horse around the time of the Battle of Trenton. This tree was famously depicted by Joseph Pickett. 

A copy of title records, held in the archives at the New Hope Historical Society, dates only back to 1949 for the Buttonwood home that began as a stable. Several changes of ownership occurred over the subsequent decades with current owners in place since 2008.


The home was modified several times over the decades, adding and expanding rooms. A major renovation occurred in 2004. The original walls of the stable are still standing, though now covered. The moved stable was placed on a slab, while steps up and down between rooms offer some evidence of the stable's foundation when it was on Bridge Street. A low ceiling on the second level was raised and vaulted. Original pine planks are found on the second floor as well. In the yard, bricks were found and the owner speculates the property may have once been used as a disposal area for the Paxson estate. 

Incidentally, while researching this property, NHHS Historian Roy Ziegler informed us that less than a block away from today's subject home, there is another home that was relocated from elsewhere in New Hope. In order to make way for the railroad tracks, this second relocated structure was moved from Ferry Street and now occupies the southeast corner of Buttonwood and Chestnut Streets. That home has connections to two of our earlier "Beyond the Door" articles. While on Ferry Street, it was occupied by the great-grandparents of the current Newhart descendant of the Osmond/Newhart House (Osmond/Newhart House), and by 1944 it was owned on Chestnut Street by Ray and Laura Worthington (New Hope Arts).



Many thanks to all who were interviewed and shared the history of their property with us.


The members of the Archives Team involved in this article are Nicole Hudson, Archivist and the following volunteers:

 

Tom Lyon

Tom Williams

Beyond The Door

Methodists, Marsha Brown, and Oldstone Steakhouse

April 13, 2025
April 14, 2025 One of the most prominent buildings in New Hope today is found at the current location of the Oldestone Steakhouse . For 125 years it was the home of the New Hope Methodists, under various names including the New Hope Methodist Episcopal and New Hope United Methodist Church. The history of this building is intertwined with the history of New Hope and helps inform us about how societal trends impacted our community. To prepare this article, volunteers from the New Hope Historical Society met and toured the building with current Oldestone owner/partner, Michael Sklar. They also spoke with Walter Jennings who was born while his father pastored the church in the 1940’s. Rev. Joseph F. DiPaolo was also interviewed. He was pastor of the church from 1992 to its last service on Main Street in 1999 and was the first pastor after it then moved to Aquetong Road in Solebury. Rev. DiPaolo wrote lengthy and well-documented histories (1,2) of Methodism and other religious entities in New Hope and nearby areas covering the years 1818-2003. These sources, coupled with the archives of the New Hope Historical Society, provided the content of this article. Rev. DiPaolo writes in his book that in the early years of Bucks County’s development, residents were largely Quakers, with a local meeting house built on Sugan Road in Solebury by 1805. In addition to Quakers, Bucks County was home to Scots Irish Presbyterians. They formed the first New Hope Sunday school in 1818 and met in what was known then as the Academy, still standing at 129 Bridge Street. It was in the Academy that the first Methodist congregation in New Hope also met by 1818: the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church which later took the name Mt. Moriah and drew congregants from the African American community. In 1830, another Methodist group began meeting at the Sutton home on W. Mechanic Street, drawing from the White community. By 1837, a simple wood-frame church building had been built at the southwest corner of West Mechanic Street and New Street, the first such structure in New Hope. The second great awakening in America (1795-1835) was occurring and by 1845 there were 12 churches in the area of New Hope, Solebury and what was then called Lambert’s Ville. The building at 15 South Main Street was built 1873-1874 on land between the Logan House (now the Logan Inn) and the then newly constructed Crook home (now the Mansion Inn). The land was purchased for $600, having once been part of tracts owned by well-known New Hope historical figures: Richard Heath, Benjamin Canby, John Coryell, and Joseph Stockton. The church architect was James Bird, and the stone mason was Peter S. Naylor. By the time it was completed it was valued at $14,000. It replaced the Methodist church on Mechanic Street, for which no known photos exist today. A newspaper at the time reported the prior church was in a bad location and in dilapidated condition. The old Methodist cemetery still exists adjacent to the parking lot driveway from Mechanic Street to the New Hope Borough Municipal Office. Rev. DiPaolo reports that a cemetery clean-up in 1959 resulted in some gravestones not being placed in their original location.

Parry‘s General Provisions Store

October 30, 2024
Situated directly across Main Street from New Hope Historical Society’s Parry Mansion is one of the oldest surviving buildings in New Hope, now housing several commercial ventures including Farley’s Bookshop. The New Hope Historical Society (NHHS) archives include a copy of Margaret Bye Richie’s extensive and well-documented review of historic buildings in New Hope for her 1987 academic dissertation in the University of Pennsylvania Department of American Civilization. In it, she noted that the northern portion of the building was built circa 1748 and was represented on Benjamin Parry’s 1798 map as “No. 21”, while the southern portion was built circa 1830 near the time of the canal construction. Her 1980’s conversation with local architect Donald Hedges quoted him that in 1940 a sign stating “Parry’s General Store” still hung on the building. The Parry Store was likely the first provisions store in New Hope. 

Canal-side House Pre-dates the Canal

August 2, 2024
New Hope Historical Society archives volunteers recently met with Ernie Bowman at the historic home he shares with his wife Dee Dee at 116 New Street. This home is the south side of a stone double house that was built facing east over 200 years ago, before the construction of the Delaware Canal which now borders the home in its backyard. After the canal was built and New Street was constructed the front door was changed to the west side of the house facing New Street. Due to the slope of the land towards the canal, the original second floor became the first floor entering from New Street. The original first floor was transformed into an above-ground basement with an outdoor entrance facing the canal. Ernie Bowman believes prior to the canal being built by 1834, that the future towpath near the house may have been used as a carriage path. New Hope Historical Society archives files indicate the house was likely built by Joshua Vansant. When Ernie and Dee Dee purchased the home in 1982, much of the original woodwork inside the home was intact and to this day has never been significantly altered. Although the 1983 nomination form for the National Register of Historic Places for the “New Hope Village District” lists the house as being built in 1805, during renovations of the now basement level, a penny from 1817 was discovered under the floor, perhaps indicating that as the date of construction.