How did Falls Creek in Pennsylvania get it’s name? This page provides a brief history about Falls Creek in Pennsylvania, the people who settled on it, and the industry rising around it.
The richly wooded hills along the banks of the river Delaware northward between New Hope and the Northampton County line are crossed by deep rocky gorges that carry small streams from the highlands to the river. Down one of these gorges flows Falls Creek, wholly in Bridgeton Township. Rising in the swamp near the Nockamixon-Bridge ton Township line, it meanders sluggishly around the east side of Cedar or Round Hill, then flows northwardly to the Upper Black Eddy Road, where it takes a decided dip and slides down a long gently-inclined mass of smooth flat rock, bordered by hemlock trees, bringing it to the brink of High Falls. Here the water, in a sheer drop of thirty feet, falls into the gorge, and after passing through the chasm flows across the River Road and out into the lowlands, emptying into the Delaware Division Canal northwest of Upper Black Eddy. Normally a harmless brook, in flood times the stream is dangerous and people have been drowned in its swollen waters.
This item is from the Doylestown Democrat of August 20, 1833:
DROWNED
An inquest was held on Tuesday, the 6th inst., by John Adams, Esq., on the body of a woman named Catherine Cochrane, drowned in FALL CREEK, Nockamixon Township, this county. It appeared that she attempted to pass over a foot bridge across the creek and fell in. She was found by the bridge. The jury returned a verdict of drowned.
High Falls, as its name implies, is the highest waterfall in the county. When the snow and ice on the swamp melt in the spring or following a drenching summer shower, the falls present a spectacle worth seeing. The famous Ringing Rocks are close by the falls. More distant is the curious formation known as Roaring Rocks.
Source: MacReynolds, George. Place Names in Bucks County Pennsylvania, 2nd Edition. Doylestown, PA: The Bucks County Historical Society, 1955.