How did Bridgeton Township, Pennsylvania get it’s name? This page provides a brief history about the naming of Bridgeton Township, Pennsylvania, the people who settled it, and the industry rising within it.
A recent addition to the galaxy of townships, Bridgeton was formed by a division of Nockamixon Township. It is bounded northeast by Deleware River, southeast by Tinicum Township, southwest by Nockamixon and northwest by a small stream rising at the base. of Cauffman Hill and emptying into the Delaware at Narrowsville, completing the Bridgeton-Nockamixon line. The township is small, but its river front, extending from Narrowsville on the northeast to the southern extremity of Upper Black Eddy on the southeast, is one of the most interesting parts of the Delaware Valley. ‘The imaginary Swamp Line includes the whole of the township except the river lowlands. Its special scenic features are the famed Ringing Rocks, High Falls and Falls Creek Ravine, Wild Cat Hollow and Mine Spring. Bridgeton was so named in honor of the fine arch and truss wooden bridge over the river between Upper Black Eddy, Pa., and Milford, N. J., with a total length of 681 feet, three spans, single driveways and footwalks on either side, opened for travel January 2g, 1842. Of the eleven original covered bridges that connected Bucks County with New Jersey, this is the only one that remains intact. Bridgeton was erected into a township in 1890. The petition for the division of Nockamixon, signed by many citizens, was presented to the Court of Quarter Sessions at Doylestown in 1889. Commissioners appointed to act upon the petition presented their report at the December Term of the same year, recommending division. Daniel Gotwals, one of the commissioners, filed a minority report and exceptions to the majority report were presented at a session of Adjourned Court January 14, 1890. As the opposition was not very serious, Judge Harman Yerkes dismissed the exceptions and signed the decree of division May 24, 1890, directing that the larger portion should be named Nockamixon and the smaller Bridgeton. At a special election on Saturday, June 28, the new township elected its first complement of officials. “The election,” said a newspaper correspondent of that day, “caused great excitement, nearly as much as a national election.”
Source: MacReynolds, George. Place Names in Bucks County Pennsylvania, 2nd Edition. Doylestown, PA: The Bucks County Historical Society, 1955.