How did Forest Grove, Pennsylvania get it’s name? This page provides a brief history about the naming of Forest Grove, Pennsylvania, the people who settled it, and the industry rising within it.
Village in southwestern Buckingham Township on the road leading from Furlong to Wycombe. Its first name, Forestville, was changed to Forest Grove when the post office was established, December 12, 1877, with William M. Kirk as postmaster. Hershey’s Directory, 1872, says the village at that time had twenty houses, a store, blacksmith and wheelwright shops and Odd Fellows Hall. The hall ceased to be used for lodge purposes about 1870. Forestville Presbyterian congregation was organized in 1853, although services had been held in private houses and Odd Fellows Hall as early as 1846. The site of the church building and cemetery was bought from. William Kirk, Sr., and wife, Mercy H. Kirk, November 23, 1854. Ground was broken August so the next year and the building, a rectangular stone structure with belfry, was finished at a cost of $2,309 and dedicated November 21, 1855. Among the prominent clergymen under whom the congregation prospered were Rev. Henry E. Spayd, first pastor, 1856-1867; Rev. Jacob B. Krewson, second pastor, 1869-1912, and Rev. Jesse Penney Martin, D. D., 1923, until a short time before his death. The congregation celebrated the seventy-fifth anniversary of its organization in 1928. The name Forest Grove seems to have been suggested by the heavily timbered groves once surrounding the place.
Source: MacReynolds, George. Place Names in Bucks County Pennsylvania, 2nd Edition. Doylestown, PA: The Bucks County Historical Society, 1955.