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My recollections are of the way of life in the mid 1960's thru the '70's, when the only "development" nearby was off Rt. 313 north of Fonthill, done for the returning soldiers from WW II, to house their families.

When I first came to Doylestown in 1965 the town was a sleepy little village compared to my childhood home in Bryn Mawr, PA. My husband was an animal husbandry student at the college, and I found myself in a completely different world. As well as the college farm, I had the privilege of visiting at several working farms in the area, all now covered by developments, the old farmhouses now hidden from view.

We rented in town, an apartment near the railroad station. On our excursions to the old farmsteads we spent time in both restored and un-restored farmhouses, some very primitive by today's standards. Some of the latter still used "summer kitchens" with porcelain stoves in the fireplace niches for the hot, late-summer and early fall butchering done by the families. One of my favorite memories is of working as a group butchering a steer, cutting the meat and wrapping some to store at the Dublin Freezer lockers. The kill was done in Hereford PA on one day, and after the carcass was hung for a few days we re-assembled to divide the carcass into cuts, wrapping each into butcher paper for storage.

While my husband was a student, Del Val was primarily an agricultural college. Coming from suburban roots I was un-schooled in farm activities but swiftly learned to appreciate the difficulties and labors needed to run a working farm, sort of an education by association. Where the new development at the site of the old Mrs. Paul's factory in Doylestown stands was the annual Doylestown fair. There the farmers displayed prize vegetables and flowers from their home gardens. For entertainment there was the movie theater in Doylestown, plenty of visiting, and trips to a horse auction near Plumsteadville.

We too raised a great deal of our on food; chickens, sheep and vegetables were those we raised at the old Trymby Farm just east of Dublin PA, where we moved in 1970. We would co-op on a steer and a hog, each putting about $10 into buying and raising those, followed up by the group assembling in the fall to butcher at someone's home. Then back to the Dublin Lockers to stock up the freezer. We would buy bulk sweet corn at a farm near Warminster, and work well into the night shucking and par-boiling the ears for freezing. We had a full vegetable garden, corned our own beef in a large crock in the kitchen and made our own pickles.

The Old Trymby Farm, off Rt. 313 near Dublin, before the restoration. We lived there as renters in 1970 thru 1975.

The children were free and happy, making trails through the wheat fields around the farmhouse, catching minnows in the creek and generally being child explorers. We lived at the Trymby farm, about 3/4 of a mile south of Dublin off Rt. 313. It was a white stucco farmhouse. The summer kitchen was quite large but deteriorated, located directly behind the farmhouse. There was a large barn, surrounded by about 76 acres, most of which was under cultivation while we lived there, rented to two brothers who lived nearby. They kept several head of cattle in the barn, and in the quiet evenings we could hear the snuffling sounds as they moved about and fed.

The house was built in 1856 by John Trymby. According to Edward Mathews in his history of the property, ("Wanderings Through Historic Hilltown"), "It (the house), succeeded another habitation which had stood just ninety-nine years, having been built by Henry Wismer, in 1757." The farm buildings stood in the middle of the farmland, about 400 feet from Rt. 313. We could see traces of outbuildings long gone, foundation stones of 2 of those could be discerned, one large enough to have been a tenant house. The tenant houses were used by herdsman and farm help during the season.

The house was covered in white stucco, a practice common to Bucks County in the early days. Stone houses were considered old fashioned, and to be able to stucco them over was a sign of a well to do farmer. The stonework was usually rough in those homes, as they were meant to be covered over. Many of those have been "restored" to the original stone base. Turns out that these are not restorations but re-creations of what the present mind thinks they should look like. Some are absolutely magnificent, the stone being somewhat dressed, corners smooth and laid well. Those which were originally built to be stucco covered are often of smaller, undressed stone, and more rough in appearance when stripped and re-pointed, though some have been done well. With the changes in landscape by over-development came changes in the look of the farmhouses.

The Old Trymby Farm, after the restoration. This is a picture of the restored house when it went up for sale the second time after our residence, I believe circa 1995. That photo is from the sale advertisement in one of the real estate sales booklets worked up by Don Naughton of Upper Black Eddy. As you will see by the photos that as well as the landscape changes brought about by development another facet of Bucks County life was drastically altered, the lifestyle. Some of the changes were good, the restoration of the house was tastefully done but does not reflect the way things really were, Williamsburg v/s the Bedford County log village collection. Fortunately the history of the house is preserved in Wanderings Through Historic Hilltown, a compilation of newspaper articles by Edward Mathews.

The open fields and woods, or copses, clusters of trees on un-plowable land were very alluring. Sections of wooded portions of the farms provided firewood for cooking and heating. The kitchen in the Trymby house consisted of a circa 1940's sink on a metal cabinet, a stove of about the same date as the sink with a deep well burner comparable to a crock pot for use, and a refrigerator. This part of the house was originally an enclosed porch, perhaps the front of the original building. There was early linoleum, red and white squares, worn to the base floor in front of the sink. There was also a Hoover cabinet next to the sink, complete with a flour bin and sifter, and a pull out metal tray for rolling out pie crusts. A kitchen table and a utility sink at the far end of the room completed the picture.

This is a picture of me weeding the veggie garden in 1972. My back is to the field which continues to Rt. 313, the driveway is just behind the scattered trees to my side. The house sat in the middle of the farmlands. This aspect is from in front of the house toward Rt. 313. I was weeding a corn patch, the driveway was about 2 city blocks long from the house to the road. That drive was replaced with a new entrance about 200 feet toward the Dublin side to accomodate the houses built on 10 acre plots, about 5 if I recall correctly.

The farmland was parceled out and sold about 1985, I may be wrong on the year, divided into 10 acre tracts for each residence. The driveway was closed off and moved about 200 feet in the direction of Dublin, and is now Chelfield Drive. About 5 houses surround the old farmhouse which has been stripped of its stucco and added to, and it does look lovely. The barn burned sometime after 1975, and was not replaced. No more cattle lowing in the soft summer evenings, no more gatherings to butcher, no more farmers plowing and cultivating.

The rhythm of life in Bucks has changed to warp speed, with all the troubles that change brings. Seasons are marked by frantic holidays not those seasonal chores and delights we met with on our arrival there. It was a good ache of the bones to participate in a lifestyle now disappearing in the county, compared to the stresses of today. Children were more free, less stressed and less herded into activities of their parent's choosing. They learned about real life, and learned to accept the realities of existence, replaced with packaged Disney style events of little import. Take time to help them experience that lost world, visit the college farm with them, attend the Middletown Grange fair and explain the past to them. As they move into their adult lives they may lose fascination with these artifacts and join in the race, but some part of the connection with the old way of life may just help them to understand the need for preservation.

--Hazleton, PA
  March, 2007