How did Canada Hill in Pennsylvania get it’s name? This page provides a brief history about Canada Hill in Pennsylvania, the people who settled on it, and the industry rising around it.
This hill is on York Road (Route 202) in Solebury Township about midway between Aquetong eastward and Lahaska westward. A small settlement there has also been called Canada Hill for many years.1 The origin of the name seems to have been forgotten. It has been said that the hill took the name from a Canada, or Kanady, family who lived there, but this needs verification. On the hillside is a small rectangular stone church building, known as Solebury Baptist Church, but often referred to as Canada Hill Church. Through the efforts of Baptist evangelists from Lambertville, N. J., the congregation was organized on March 28, 1843, with the following members: Ann Walton, Charles F., Margaret and Susan Smith, Ira Hill, Catharine, Jacob and David Reeder Naylor, Nelson H. Coffin, Joseph Evans, Mary Kinsey, George Cathers and Leonard Wright. Land on which the church with its adjoining graveyard stands was bought the same year from Isaac Scarborough for $70, and the next year the building was begun and, though habitable earlier, was not entirely finished until 1851. The pulpit was mostly filled by supplies, with a few regular pastors for short terms. One of the pastors, Rev. W. B. Shrope, liked to relate the story of a couple who gave him ten cents to marry them. The pulpit was vacant for three years prior to 1869, when Dr. George H. Larison, of Lambertville, N. J., became pastor. His energy in this field increased the membership to 131, the additions in a single year being 83. On August 3, 1900, the church issued the first number of a small four-page periodical, The Solebury Baptist, edited by Jesse N. Ely, of Aquetong. This was probably the only number ever published, and only a single copy is known. For various reasons the church has been inactive for a number of years and religious services are no longer held.
Source: MacReynolds, George. Place Names in Bucks County Pennsylvania, 2nd Edition. Doylestown, PA: The Bucks County Historical Society, 1955.
- There is some authority for the statement that the village at Canada Hill was once called Somerville. In Doylestown Democrat of July 30, 1833, appears the announcement, “A new Post Office has been established at Somerville, in this county. and Cyrus Betts appointed postmaster.” Cyrus Betts, who was the second son of Isaac and Tamar Pellar Betts, resided at Canada Hill in that year, and the name of the hamlet seems to have been Somerville at that time. On the part of the Pellar-Betts farm occupied by Cyrus Betts originated the “James Pellar apple,” a fine quality, which ripened later than the celebrated Townsend apple, also a native of Solebury Township. [↩]