How did Lahaska Creek in Pennsylvania get its name? This page provides a brief history about the naming of Lahaska Creek, the people who settled around it, and the industry rising around it.
Though rising in Solebury Township north of Lahaska, this stream is almost wholly in Buckingham Township. It flows in a near southerly direction and forms a junction with Watsons Creek between Buckingham and Buckingham Valley. From that point to its junction with Neshaminy Creek at Rushland, Wrightstown Township, it is known as Mill Creek. It has two tributaries, both rising near Mechanicsville, one crossing Old York Road (Route 202) at Holicong and the other crossing the same highway near Buckingham.
In some early documents, deeds and maps the stream is named Randalls Creek, so called from an early settler named Randall, although little is known about him. The portion of the stream now called Mill Creek was first Randalls Creek. In 1718 Richard Mitchell purchased 70 acres on the east side of the creek and built himself a mill. Mitchell, who was Justice of the Peace and much occupied with public business, also ran the mill for many years. It was torn down, and another was built farther downstream by the Ellicotts, famous later in Maryland and Washington, D. C.1 Mitchell at his death in 1759 left the mill to his son-in-law, Eldad Roberts, who March 16, 1764, sold it to his brother-in-law, Joseph Watson. Randalls Run is mentioned in the unrecorded deed of Roberts to Watson and the mill is called Rush Valley Mills. In an earlier unrecorded deed, dated July 26, 1742, from John Hillborne, of Frankford, Philadelphia County, to Richard Mitchell, of Wrightstown, for 55 acres in Wrightstown Township, Randalls Run is also mentioned.2
Lahaska Creek winds through the charming Buckingham valley, to which the name Lahaska was frequently applied in the past. Lahaska as a name has its origin in that of an Indian town on the banks of the creek, which the Lenapes called Lahaskeke or Lehaske-king,3 from the stem lehasik, to write or written, and eke, much, hence the meaning “the place of much writing,” probably from the fact that some parley or treaty, or some important Indian picture writing, was made there. The late Colonel Henry D. Paxson probably knew the exact location of this Indian town, but he never disclosed it further than to mention it as “an old village southeast of Centreville.” The Indian name has been spelled by writers several ways, as Lahaskeek, Lahasaka, Lahaseka, Lahaska, Lasskeek, Layoskeek, Laoskeykee, Laoskeke, Laskeek, Lahoskeek. Besides raising miraculous cereal crops, the beautiful valley was productive of poets, who have taken plenty of poetic license with its spelling. In a letter to the Newtown Journal, 11th mo. 8th, 1842, John Watson states that his father (Dr. John Watson, of Buckingham, 1746-1817) wrote the name Laoskeek and quotes the following verse from a poem published by the Doctor in 1805:
"But let him not through a weak pride despise
The rural hamlets and happy swains,
Where Laoskeek and Cutalossa rise,
And water with their streams the fertile plains."
In a succeeding issue of the Journal, S. P., who it is assumed was Samuel Johnson Paxson, the talented editor of the Journal and later of the Doylestown Democrat, takes issue with Mr. Watson and says he had questioned Dr. Watson many years before about this name and he had given it as Lahasaka. In 1846, in an ode contributed to the Doylestown Democrat by A. S. P. (Albert S. Paxson), the Laoskeek of 1805 became Lahasaka:
"In every clime, in every tongue and age,
Has Nature's beauties charmed the poet's page;
We see with pride by Halleck's master hand,
New grace thrown 'round his own green forest land;
More recent still, New England's streams and plains
Immortalized in Whittier's matchless strains.
In Catskill's praises see a lyre new strung(
And shall Lahasaka remain unsung?"
John P. Rogers in “The Doan Outlaws, or The Bucks County Cowboys in the Revolution,” (1846), follows the same spelling and quotes this anonymous lyric:
"Thy forests are noble,
Thy meadows are green
And lovely - thrice lovely
Does Lahasaka seem;
But thy lasses are fairer
Than flower or tree,
The delight of us rustics
And an honor to thee."