Doreen Stratton
There are times when life treats you with a piece of knowledge about your hometown and you tuck it away, unless it pops up in your memory bank at an unexpected moment. Eleven years had passed before it happened for me.
It was Saturday, April 6, 2013, when a historical marker was unveiled at the corners of State and Main streets in Doylestown Borough. The marker dedicated this intersection as the trail for the Lenni Lenape Nation as they traveled from the east and from the south to their destination, the Delaware River.
The Doylestown Historical Society with assistance from Melissa Cornick, a journalist, and strategic communication specialist (for professional activities), coordinated the day’s event, which included a lecture by Professor Evan Pritchard, descendant of the Micmac people (part of the Algonquin Nation).
Earlier that same day Pritchard’s, an Algonquin Historian, had lectured to a packed audience at the Doylestown Presbyterian Church. I was impressed with Pritchard describing the Lenape historic trade route, the stop at State and Main streets, its ancient land use, and the pathways along what became Routes 202 and 611.
After the marker dedication, there was a lively afternoon powwow at the Doylestown Historical Society Park.
Pritchard’s visit allowed him to tour some of the tunnels which remain below our town’s streets. Thousands of years ago these “tunnels” were caves where the Lenape, a nomadic indigenous tribe, rested after traveling from the shores of New Jersey.
Eleven years after the Lenape Marker’s dedication, the front-page April 4, 2024, edition of the Bucks County Herald reported:
“Bucks County Historical Society’s Doylestown Twp. Land eyed for luxury homes.”
Where, you ask, is this land?
When you drive south on Main Street in Doylestown Borough, across from the new Wawa is a thicket of trees — 24…