The re-routing of Old York Road from Centre Bridge (Reading’s Landing) to New Hope (Wells Ferry) in 1741 was the linchpin propelling the small river town’s prominence as a transportation hub in the 18th century.
By 1799, stagecoaches regularly traveled from Philadelphia to New York City stopping at New Hope, the midpoint of the arduous journey. Soon, several coaches ran between the two major cities every day, leaving Philadelphia around 8 a.m., finally reaching New Hope at dusk. The next day, the coaches boarded the ferry and later crossed the New Hope-Lambertville Bridge to New Jersey and on to Newark or Jersey City (Paulus Hook) where they crossed over to New York City.
Just four decades later, the Delaware and Lehigh Canal opened a water route through New Hope from far north in Jim Thorpe, carrying anthracite coal to the growing American cities. Once again, New Hope was the midpoint of the canal system, this time between upstate Pennsylvania and Philadelphia. It was in New Hope where the canal boats carrying tons of coal crossed the Delaware River to Lambertville. There they linked up to the Delaware-Raritan feeder canal to Trenton and continued the long journey to the ports of New Jersey and on to New York.
At their peak, nearly 3,000 canal boats traveled through New Hope each year until the arrival of the railroad in 1891 decimated the canal business, ending its operation in 1932 — a century after their initial journey through town.
On March 29, 1891, the line, originally known as the New Hope Branch of the Reading Company (RDG), leased it to the North Pennsylvania Railroad, and it was extended to New Hope. The railroad had run as far as Hartsville Station (later Ivyland) and later linked to Warminster, where it connected to Philadelphia.
At its peak, the New Hope Railroad ran 10 trains daily to Philadelphia. They carried passengers and freight, such as milk from the farms along the route, gravel from the quarries around New Hope and bricks from the brickyard adjacent to the railroad property, operated by an Ohio firm — the American Clay Products Company — in the 1920s.
About 60 years later, the New Hope train made its final run to Philadelphia when, in 1954, America’s enchantment with gas-guzzling automobiles drove the railroad operations out of business. The old train station, designed by prominent architect Frank Furness, was shut down and hauled back into the nearby woods where it deteriorated for more than a decade until the New Hope Historical Society, in 1966, with the support to the New Hope community, restored it and moved it back to near its original location off West Bridge Street.
Just 14 years after train service was introduced to New Hope, the Trenton Traction Company opened its route from Trenton to Lambertville via the New Hope-Lambertville Bridge in 1905, providing access to Trenton and points south and west of New Hope, and yet another means of travel became available to town. Unfortunately, trolley travel was short-lived, shutting down its operations in 1925.
In 1964, the first section of the new Interstate 95 Highway System in Pennsylvania opened from Woodhaven Road to the Delaware River, beginning the modern transportation route that would soon bring tens of thousands of vehicles within 10 miles of New Hope, opening the 20th century chapter of New Hope’s transportation history.
Roy Ziegler is the New Hope Historical Society’s historian and a member of its board of directors.
“Heralding Our History” is a weekly feature. Each month, the Herald delves into the history of one of its towns.
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