New Hope, Pennsylvania

early ten thousand years ago the Lenni-Lenape Native Americans carved their way from the Delaware River in what is now Philadelphia through richly wooded forests seeking land for planting, forests for hunting and water for fishing. Many of them settled on about 1,000 acres in what is now New Hope, Pennsylvania.

In the early part of the eighteenth century William Penn authorized a sale of land to Robert Heath for the purpose of building a mill and establishing a community. Hence, New Hope was born. During the American Revolutionary War General George Washington marched through New Hope on four documented occasions and the town played a vital role in the preparations for the Battles of Trenton and Monmouth.

New Hope’s strategic location on the Delaware River has made it an important transportation hub over the past three centuries. Stage coaches, canal boats, trains, trolleys and automobiles all made their way to New Hope-the half-way point from Philadelphia to New York City and the midpoint of the Delaware Canal between Easton and Bristol.

The sheer natural beauty of the area that was first seen and appreciated by the Lenni-Lenape people so many thousands of years ago attracted the great Pennsylvania Impressionist school of artists like Daniel Garber and Edwin Redfield in the early part of the twentieth century. Broadway summer stock theater followed shortly after them featuring such great actors as Helen Hayes, George C. Scott and Robert Redford at the Bucks County Playhouse which still thrills audiences seven decades later.

Borough of New Hope