How did Cooks Run in Pennsylvania get it’s name? This page provides a brief history about Cooks Run in Pennsylvania, the people who settled on it, and the industry rising around it.
Small stream rising in a spring on Fonthill property adjacent to the northeast boundary line of Doylestown Borough. It flows in a southwesterly direction through Doylestown Township to New Britain, where it empties into Neshaminy Creek at a point once known as Kepharts and Godshalks Dam. It is about four miles long and the valley it drains is narrow, with fertile and well-cultivated fields, meadows and a few woodlands on its gentle slopes. Edward Mathews, historian of mid-county homesteads, is authority for the statement that the stream was named for Arthur Cooke, who, Mathews alleges, in 1686 received a patent for 2,000 acres of land in Plumstead Township, part of which lay near the stream along Doylestown and Dublin Turnpike Road (Route 270), which crosses it between the Mercer and Mireau (former Chapman) estates. There was some conflict of opinion on this point some years ago, Warren S. Ely, late librarian of The Bucks County Historical Society, claiming that Arthur Cooke, while a large landholder in Bucks County, never owned a foot of land in Plumstead Township. It has also been called Crooks Run and Crooked Run, supposedly from its winding stream bed. Years ago this stream furnished power for three busy mills, Histand’s near Doylestown, Godshalk’s in the present borough of New Britain and Landis’ at its mouth on the Neshaminy.
Source: MacReynolds, George. Place Names in Bucks County Pennsylvania, 2nd Edition. Doylestown, PA: The Bucks County Historical Society, 1955.