Northampton Township, Then and Now

It was immediately evident during my conversation with Betty Cornell Luff that she is one lovely lady bursting with of a wealth of historical knowledge when it comes to digging up the roots of Northampton Township.

It’s no wonder: Luff has lived in the township most of her 86 years. With so much information stashed in her memory, it was difficult for her to pinpoint a few outstanding highlights. I was in awe as I listened to her speak of treasured remembrances—narrow dirt roads, horse and carriage transportation, a country store and the one-room Richboro schoolhouse. 

Luff welcomed the opportunity to chat about Northampton in particular and Bucks County in general, remembering people and places as far back to when she was 10 years old.

This spry woman (a feminist, perhaps, before her time) lived in Northampton, first on her family’s 124-acre farm off Worthington Mill Road, then in her parents' home on Second Street Pike later moving to Lower Holland Road after she married, and subsequently settling off Spencer Road where she currently resides.

When it comes to transportation in the early days, Luff said that horse-drawn carriages transported residents to and from distances too far to reach by foot. Businesses were sparse. The country store in the middle of town (where the Sunoco station stands today) served as a modern-day one-stop shopping hub well before its time. Beautiful, spacious farmland was prevalent everywhere.

Luff related vivid and fond memories of she and her mother going to the Richboro general store. The store not only stocked groceries, but also boots, shoes, overalls, fabrics and all kinds of sewing accessories.

“I remember going there with my mother who sewed most of our clothes. I was one of four girls and the store carried all the supplies my mother needed,” Luff recalled.

History buff that she is, Luff proudly talked about some of the original photos in her possession, as well as those she has passed on to the township Historical Commission.

Luff parents, John and Margaret Cornell, owned the property at 987 Second Street Pike (the current site of Bash’s barber shop) where she and her husband, Vincent, were married in 1942, celebrating afterward with a wedding reception on the second floor of the Spread Eagle Inn. She reminisced about her Churchville train commute to her office job at the Reading Terminal in Philadelphia. “A lot of the men went off to war,” she said, “so there were plenty of jobs for us women.”

Luff is also proud of the fact that she wrote a gossip column for the Newtown Enterprise, the Doylestown Intelligencer and the Hatboro Spirit. Another memory she wanted readers to be aware of was how easy it was to deliver mail in the old days. “Only names were needed, along with the village town,” Luff recollected, “there were no zipcodes. Everyone knew everyone by name.” Laughing, she says she can’t imagine that happening today.

When asked to pinpoint the biggest change in the township, there was no hesitation. “By the 1950s,” she said, “the housing boom really hit hard, taking away the land. And once it started, it never stopped. Even today, it continues. That’s what I miss. The land. The open space. It’s not the same in that respect,” she added.