# Bucks County, Pennsylvania in the 1870s

> A farming county of wheat, corn, butter, Quaker memory, cigar work, river towns, and rail connections to Philadelphia and Trenton.

- Place: Bucks County, Pennsylvania (40.337, -75.107)
- Years: 1870 to 1879
- Page: https://yorehistory.com/place/bucks-county-pennsylvania/1870s
- Step into it (interactive): https://yorehistory.com/?step=Bucks%20County%2C%20Pennsylvania%2C%20United%20States&at=40.3370,-75.1070&year=1875

## Looking around

You stand in a county known only at county scale, so the view changes from river borough to inland farm. Around you are 315,833 cultivated acres[1], with wheat, corn, oats, hay, butter, horses, and milch cows[1] making the ordinary year. In the farm country, large barns, fences, gardens, spring-houses, walnuts, pears, grapes, eggs, and fruit[1] are the old image outsiders use for Bucks. Toward Bristol and the Delaware are textile and paper mills[3], coal-fed since the canal linked the river towns upriver. In the northeast, Durham keeps the memory of an iron furnace[3], while Buckingham valley has limestone and iron ore[1] more than precious metals. Roads lead to Doylestown, the county seat, and the county is threaded by rail lines to Philadelphia and Trenton[3]. In villages and townships, directories list farmers, blacksmiths, boatmen, millers, merchants, shoemakers, tailors, masons, wheelwrights, and sewing-machine agents[2].

## Work: Farms first, shops close

The county economy begins with 315,833 cultivated acres[1] and the 1870 output of corn, oats, wheat, hay, butter, horses, and milch cows[1]. Around that base are blacksmiths, millers, merchants, shoemakers, tailors, masons, wheelwrights, and cigar workers[2].

## Money: Land was the wealth

Reported farm value reached $40,289,213[1], with farm products worth $6,571,626[1]. Manufacturing mattered too, but its reported value, $4,732,118[1], was smaller than the value of farm products.

## Roads & news: Post offices and papers

The 1871 gazetteer promised post-office addresses[2] for farmers and tradespeople, a sign that mail routes tied scattered townships to markets and kin. Local newspaper life included the Bucks County Intelligencer[5], the Bucks County Mirror in Doylestown[5], and the Bucks County Gazette at Bristol[5].

## Law & power: Doylestown held the courts

County business centered on Doylestown, the county seat since 1812[4]. Away from formal law, about fifty horse companies[1] formed a local answer to theft and insecurity.

## Faith: Quaker and AME memory

Bucks still carried strong Quaker influence[3] in its public memory. Buckingham also had Mount Gilead African Methodist Episcopal Church[3], founded in 1834 and housed in an 1852 stone building.

## In the air: Abolition still echoed

The county had organized an anti-slavery society in 1837[3], and Underground Railroad memories remained tied to Quakers across all three sections of Bucks[3]. In the 1870s, those memories sat beside national arguments over Reconstruction and Black citizenship.

## What people feared: Theft, machines, and illness

The existence of chartered horse companies for detecting horse thieves[1] shows that rural theft was a remembered danger. Mill work at textile and paper mills[3] and cigar making in 470 manufactories[3] also put ordinary workers near machinery, dust, tools, and fire risks.

## Who lived here: County, not village

Because the location is known only at county level, this portrait cannot place a household among one neighborhood's people. The sources instead show a county of farmers, boatmen, tradesmen, merchants, manufacturers, and professional men[2] spread across boroughs and townships.

## Year by year

- **1870** (here): The Ninth U.S. Census counted Bucks County agriculture on a scale of hundreds of thousands of bushels of grain and millions of pounds of butter.[1]
- **1871** (here): A Bucks County business directory and gazetteer listed farmers, manufacturers, professionals, merchants, and their post-office addresses.[2]
- **1872** (here): The Bucks County Mirror moved to Doylestown.[5]
- **1873** (here): The Philadelphia and Trenton Railroad line by way of Bristol passed to the Pennsylvania Railroad.[3]
- **1873** (here): The Bucks County Gazette began publication at Bristol in August.[5]
- **1873** (the country): A national financial panic began, bringing bank failures, railroad trouble, unemployment, and hard times that would have been discussed in Bucks County markets and newspapers.
- **1876** (nearby): The United States Centennial Exhibition opened in Philadelphia, close enough for Bucks County residents to read about or visit by rail or road.
- **1876** (here): William Hulme Grundy moved the Grundy Brothers and Campion woolen mill from Philadelphia to Bristol.[3]
- **1877** (the country): The Great Railroad Strike spread through major Pennsylvania rail centers, including violent conflict at Pittsburgh, and would have been alarming news in a railroad-connected county.

## What the sources say

- This description is county-wide because the map point is known only as Bucks County, not as a confirmed village, farm, or borough. (from the sources)[2]
- A Bucks County history published in the 1870s said 315,833 acres of the county were under cultivation. (from the sources)[1]
- The 1870 census figures quoted in that county history gave Bucks County 525,740 bushels of wheat, 1,325,626 bushels of Indian corn, 1,208,717 bushels of oats, 118,014 tons of hay, 2,861,557 pounds of butter, 14,679 horses, and 28,572 milch cows. (from the sources)[1]
- A contemporary county history closed with a rural description of Bucks as a place of fertile farms, large barns, neat fences, spring-houses, gardens, walnuts, quinces, pears, grapes, eggs, and fruit. (from the sources)[1]
- The value of Bucks County farms was reported at $40,289,213, and the value of farm products at $6,571,626. (from the sources)[1]
- The same account valued Bucks County manufactures at $4,732,118. (from the sources)[1]
- An 1871 business directory for Bucks County indexed farmers, blacksmiths, boatmen, millers, merchants, shoemakers, tailors, masons, wheelwrights, lumber dealers, cigar makers, and sewing-machine agents. (from the sources)[2]
- The Philadelphia and Trenton Railroad ran between Philadelphia and Trenton by way of Bristol, and in 1873 it was acquired by the Pennsylvania Railroad, which also operated another east-west Bucks County line toward Trenton. (from the sources)[3]
- Along the Delaware River, Bucks County had mills producing textiles and paper, and Bristol mills used Pennsylvania coal after the Delaware Canal connected Lower Bucks with Easton in 1830. (from the sources)[3]
- Durham in northeastern Bucks County had an iron furnace dating from 1727, remembered for producing munitions in the Revolutionary era. (from the sources)[3]
- The 1870s county history said Bucks had little mineral wealth, though iron ore had been developed to some extent in Buckingham Valley, where valuable limestone deposits existed. (from the sources)[1]
- Government records in 1871 reported 470 cigar manufactories in Bucks County and one snuff mill at Bristol. (from the sources)[3]
- The North Pennsylvania Railroad had opened through Quakertown in 1856 and helped cigar factories in Quakertown, Sellersville, and Perkasie reach suppliers and markets. (from the sources)[3]
- Bristol became the county's manufacturing center after William Hulme Grundy moved the Grundy Brothers and Campion woolen mill there in 1876. (from the sources)[3]
- Doylestown had been the county seat since 1812, after earlier seats at Bristol and Newtown. (inferred)[4]
- The 1871 gazetteer was advertised as containing the names, businesses, and post-office addresses of Bucks County merchants, manufacturers, professional men, and farmers. (from the sources)[2]
- The county history described about fifty chartered horse companies, voluntary associations for detecting horse thieves and other criminals, some nearly as old as the century. (from the sources)[1]
- The Bucks County Intelligencer traced its title back through earlier Doylestown newspapers and was still part of a local newspaper world in the 1870s. (from the sources)[5]
- The Bucks County Mirror moved to Doylestown in 1872, and the Bucks County Gazette began at Bristol in August 1873. (from the sources)[5]
- Quaker influence remained a recognizable part of the county's history, and Mount Gilead African Methodist Episcopal Church in Buckingham, founded in 1834, occupied an 1852 stone building and had served as an Underground Railroad stop. (from the sources)[3]
- Bucks County abolitionists had organized the Bucks County Anti-Slavery Society in 1837, and Quakers in all three sections of the county had taken part in Underground Railroad work before the Civil War. (from the sources)[3]
- No online source opened here gives a county-wide table of ordinary 1870s wages or retail prices for Bucks County. (not known)
- No opened source gives a reliable 1870s description of the interiors of ordinary Bucks County houses by township. (not known)

## Sources

1. The History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, from the Discovery of the Delaware to the Present Time. LDS Genealogy transcription, 1876. https://ldsgenealogy.com/PA/books/The-history-of-Bucks-County-Pennsylvania-from-the-discovery-of-the-Delaware-to-the-present-time-part-82.htm
2. Business Directory and Gazetteer of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Jenkins & Atkinson, 1871. https://books.google.com/books/about/Business_Directory_and_Gazetteer_of_Buck.html?id=aRxZAAAAYAAJ
3. Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, 2016. https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/locations/bucks-county-pennsylvania/
4. Bucks County Resources. Bucks County Genealogical Society. https://bucksgen.org/index.php/resources-for-bucks-county-research
5. Newspapers and Periodicals, 1880 Census Volume VIII, Chapter 7. U.S. Census Bureau, 1880. https://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1880a_v8-07.pdf

## The same place in other decades

- [Point Pleasant area in the 1780s](https://yorehistory.com/place/point-pleasant-area-bucks-county-pennsylvania/1780s/md)

## Nearby, about the same time

- [Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania in the 1880s](https://yorehistory.com/place/doylestown-bucks-county-pennsylvania/1880s/md) (4 km)
- [Erwinna, Tinicum Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania in the 1860s](https://yorehistory.com/place/erwinna-bucks-county-pennsylvania/1860s/md) (18 km)
- [Mount Pleasant, Alexandria Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey in the 1840s](https://yorehistory.com/place/mount-pleasant-hunterdon-county-new-jersey/1840s/md) (30 km)
- [Mauch Chunk, Carbon County, Pennsylvania in the 1840s](https://yorehistory.com/place/mauch-chunk-carbon-county-pennsylvania/1840s/md) (80 km)
- [White Haven, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania in the 1860s](https://yorehistory.com/place/white-haven-luzerne-county-pennsylvania/1860s/md) (98 km)
- [New York in the 1900s](https://yorehistory.com/place/new-york-new-york/1900s/md) (102 km)
- [Wyoming or Wilkes-Barre area, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania in the 1870s](https://yorehistory.com/place/wyoming-or-wilkes-barre-area-luzerne-county-pennsylvania/1870s/md) (118 km)
- [Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania in the 1870s](https://yorehistory.com/place/wilkes-barre-luzerne-county-pennsylvania/1870s/md) (120 km)

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Researched by Yore's AI historian (gpt-5.5) on 2026-10-12 from the sources listed. It is about the place and the time, not about any person. Statements marked "inferred" are conclusions, not records. Cite as: Yore, "Bucks County, Pennsylvania in the 1870s", https://yorehistory.com/place/bucks-county-pennsylvania/1870s