Canal-side House Pre-dates the Canal

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.

New Hope Historical Society member Ann Niessen did extensive research from about 1977 to 1981, populating both the National Register nomination form for “New Hope Village” and the current New Hope Historical Society archives. There she writes that the double house was part of the Joshua Vansant plantation. She adds that Vansant acquired the 95 acres from his father-in-law Joseph Wilkinson in 1798. In 1823 Vansant bequeathed all of his holdings to his daughter, Mary. In 1834 Mary bequeathed all of her holdings to her husband, Lewis Slate Coryell, a descendant of the Coryells for whom New Hope was once named. Prior articles in the Beyond the Door series have mentioned this colorful character who had many real estate holdings in New Hope and who served as the Confederacy-sympathizing New Hope burgess (mayor) at the time of the Civil War. Ann Niessen adds that because this home is fieldstone, “indications are quite strong that it was built by Joshua Vansant just at the turn of the 19th century. The earliest atlas on which subject structure appears is the 1850 Rogerson & Murphy Survey Map.”


A photo from the 1920s shows a hose raised to the roof where damage from a fire can be seen. Also seen is an array of beehives situated between the house and the canal. The likely original arched dormers are seen in the photo. Subsequently, the dormers were changed to the pedimented gable dormers seen in the photo that leads this article.

The house passed through multiple owners over two centuries, and the owner from 1960 to 1981 used a portion of the home as a beauty parlor as well as a chair caning establishment. Ernie Bowman states that it reached a sheriff sale in 1981 selling for less than $1000 prior to it being acquired by him and his wife for considerably more. They then moved the kitchen from the cellar level to the street level into the room once used as the beauty parlor. They discovered shutters in the attic and had them rehung. Basement renovations exposed an existing fireplace, bringing the number of fireplaces in the home to four. On the level just above street level, they converted one of the original three bedrooms to a bathroom. In the attic, there is an additional bedroom and bathroom.

Fireplace exposed in the original kitchen area on the lowest level of the house.

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Beyond Boundaries

Fireplace exposed in the original kitchen area on the lowest level of the house.

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Architecturally each side of the double house is an approximate mirror image of the other. Georgian-style features are evident. A late 19th-century open wood porch spans the complete width of the double house on the New Street side. Pedimented dormers on the attic level were likely added in the mid-19th century per Ann Niessen’s research. On the canal side at the east (rear) elevation, there is a two-story, sloped roof, one-room deep clapboard addition.


Both current owners, Ernie, and Dee Dee Bowman, served on the New Hope Historical Society board in the past, with Ernie managing Parry Mansion maintenance and repairs and Dee Dee serving as president. Many thanks to them for their prior service and for sharing their historic home with us.

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

 

Michele Gunnells

Tom Lyon

Sandie Mines

David Newhart

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.

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

January 17, 2025
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. 

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.