Historic Newtown Township farm sacrificed for the greater good. Can what's left be saved?
My wife and I were hiking the Appalachian Trail in New Jersey in 1975 to see Buttermilk Falls and visit fertile Peter’s Valley tucked between the Delaware River and our Kittatinny Mountain footpath. There, we learned angry growers had been deprived of their heirloom homes and farms so a dam could be built across the river to create an immense lake upstream from the Water Gap. The rationale: Provide the greater good by ensuring a water supply to New York City in times of drought.
Though the feds seized the farms, it never built Tocks Island Dam. In the aftermath, the U.S. converted the farms into a craft village, further rubbing local sentiments raw.
Recently, Richard Noe contacted me about a somewhat parallel situation — sans the craft village — in Newtown Township. In this case the dam was built, forcing a family to give up its 18th-century farm. Noe was a boyhood friend of the couple’s son Walt, both of whom worry about the fate of the farm.
The story revolves around William and Helen Shull, who since the 1930s owned a 113-acre farm off Wrights Road at the headwaters of Newtown Creek. There they raised two sons and four daughters in a stone house dating back to 1715. Walt, a retired South Jersey math and history teacher, told me growing up was “a wonderful life mixed with hard work.” The family operated a dairy on the property and cultivated vegetable and grain crops on neighboring leased farms.
Everything changed in the 1960s. County government realized something had to be done to harness tributaries to Neshaminy Creek, the county’s central river. Big rains brought big floods to places like Hilltown, New Britain, Chalfont, Doylestown Township, Newtown, Northampton, Middletown, Penndel, Bensalem, Bristol Township and Hulmeville.
The plan was to build levees across feeder streams. By the 1970s eight had been constructed — Hilltown, Warrington, Peace Valley (Doylestown Township), Pine Run, Robin Run (Buckingham), Core Creek (Middletown), Railroad Creek (Chalfont) and finally Newtown Creek. The impoundment of flood waters behind the levees plus the development of storm water retention basins in housing tracts and retail centers solved the problem.
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As for the 40-foot-high Newtown Creek Dam, Bucks initially condemned a 27-acre chunk of the Shull farm, ending the family’s dairy operation. The Shulls sought a better financial offer. Bucks resisted. Faced with a protracted legal fight, according to Walt, the family decided to sell the entire farm to the county and leave in April 1972. Bucks set aside 86 acres as open space including the rare Shull home and barn.
According to Rich Noe, the family faced the same choice as many middle-aged farmers in the 1970s. “It was age and retirement money and no more hard work versus fights in court and rise early daily for cows, etc.”
The Shulls, however, decided to continue farming elsewhere. They soon discovered land was too expensive in Lancaster, Delaware and as far away as Minnesota. They settled for acreage on the Delmarva Peninsula in Maryland, not nearly as fertile as what they left behind in Bucks.
Meanwhile, the county completed work on the Newtown dam in the late 1970s. “Hidden Lake” formed behind it, inaccessible to the public.
In 1989, a local homeowners association got the farm added to the National Registry of Historic Places. Research revealed Robert Hillborn founded the farm in 1715 by clearing land and building a cabin. In 1750 Peter Taylor bought the property and enlarged the cabin into a two-story, sandstone farmhouse. A barn was added in 1750.
The home, enlarged by the Shulls to accommodate a disabled daughter, has stood for 307 years, the barn 270. The Registry determined both were in good shape and “among the earliest documented and surviving buildings exhibiting the fully developed regional-cultural vernacular forms in lower-central Bucks County.”
The county in 2001 added a deed restriction preventing development of the farm in perpetuity. Since then the house and farm have been under lease.
Walt recently visited after attending a class reunion at Council Rock High School. On inspecting the house’s window frames and stonework, he estimated there’s been little maintenance the past 10-15 years. The barn with its wood peg construction was in a state of collapse. He wishes the county would invest some money in the home or sell it to someone who would better care for it. He and Rich hope the county posts a marker on Wrights Road to note the farm’s preservation and age. So far no action.
James O’Malley, deputy director of the county department of communications, told me last week land preservation “remains a priority” and Bucks “will continue to look for new ways to improve and maintain the land it owns.” He noted there have been no requests for historical signage. Stay tuned.
Sources include “Deed of Park/Conservation Easement” filed on Dec. 19, 2001 in the county recorder of deeds office; the resolution by the Bucks County commissioners to acquire easements for the flood control dams adopted on Sept. 13, 1966, and the U.S. Dept. of the Interior’s registration form for the Peter Taylor Farmstead/Shull Farm” entered into the registry on May 5, 1989.
Carl LaVO can be reached at carllavo0@gmail.com
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Bucks County's Shull Farm property in state of disrepair
