How did Haycock Creek in Pennsylvania get it’s name? This page provides a brief history about Haycock Creek in Pennsylvania, the people who settled on it, and the industry rising around it.
Stream forming the boundary between Haycock and Nockamixon Townships. Formerly known as Haycock Run, it is formed by two smaller streams, one rising near Stony Garden, Haycock Mountain, and the other in Springfield Township, about midway between Pleasant Valley and Bursonville. The first two miles of its course is nearly semicircular towards the east, then flowing southward about five miles and emptying into Tohickon Creek where the four corners of Haycock, Nockamixon, Tinicum, and Bedminster Townships meet. It is a placid stream, but remarkable in early times for its water power, which supplied half a dozen now-abandoned grist and saw mills. Besides being a township boundary, it is the dividing line between the red sandstone and the trap rock formations, the former in Haycock, the latter in Nockamixon. Haycock Creek valley is the district in which the pioneers of Nockamixon and Haycock settled. John Anderson was the first purchaser of land but was not a settler. The first settler was Edward McCarty, an original owner of land bought from Thomas and John Penn. His descendants became numerous and mostly were settlers on the Nockamixon side of the creek. The Frankenfields were the early occupants of land on the Haycock side. Following these pioneer settlements in the wilderness, Jesuit Fathers from Goshenhoppen began holding services at Edward McCarty’s house as early as 1742. These services were continued in various homes until 1798, when, through the united efforts of the McCartys and others, the parish of St. John the Baptist was formed, and the same year the first Catholic Church in Bucks County was erected there at a cost of $150 on land given by John McCarty, a nephew of Edward, the pioneer. The present larger structure was erected in 1854. St. John’s was the parent parish of several missions, some having since grown into flourishing congregations, the largest of which is the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Doylestown.