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| Benefits Doylestown Hospital and Village Improvement Association of Doylestown Community Projects |
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| Hilltop Farm 3990 Mechanicsville Road Buckingham, PA |
| Hilltop Farm |
| From the late 17th century to the beginning of the 21st century, the property now called Hilltop Farm has had 18 or 19 different owners. Several times the property passed from father to son, but under various circumstances, because the landholders were consumed with debt or lacked business acumen, the property went to outside buyers. John Hough, who arrived in the Delaware Valley in 1683, purchased 475 acres in the Buckingham area. At his death by drowning, three buyers divided the original tract. The 137 1/2 acres upon which the manor now stands eventually went to John Branfield, Sr. The first substantial structure was built by Meshach Michener, a stone mason who owned the plantation in the 1790s and built a house for his son Isaiah. This house became what are now the old kitchen and fireplace and two front rooms of Hilltop Farm. In 1814 George Rapp purchased most of Meshach’s property and added adjoining acreage but lost it at public sale for a debt of $668.25. In 1878 Seneca Fell, Jr., then owner, sold the property to Alexander Rich for $11,501.72, nearly $3,000 less than he had paid for it three years earlier. By this time, now named “The Star Farm” with outbuildings, orchards, timberland and a “never-failing spring”, the estate was advertised as being “convenient to schools, church, stores and railroad.” Well into the 20th century, a prominent couple, John H. and Anna Ruckman, were responsible for acquiring all but two small tracts of the original 137 ½ acres, and for the first time in 206 years the land was again under one ownership. In all likelihood, it is they who enlarged the house and moved an interior staircase. Their son and heir bequeathed 30 acres to Ronald Webster, a former tavern owner, and the remainder passed to Charles V. Swain. By 1987 Swain had acquired Webster’s portion and all of the estate became united again. Charles Swain died in 2006 at the age of 92. He was a renowned collector of museum quality antiques, especially pewter. His nephew, Donald L. Fennimore, who once resided in Doylestown, is the retired curator of metals at Winterthur Museum. The picturesque estate, now comprising 18 acres with a lovely manor set among trees and outbuildings, is the Village Improvement Association's 33rd Bucks County Designer House and Gardens. |