How did Lower Makefield Township, Pennsylvania get its name? This page provides a brief history about the naming of Lower Makefield Township, Pennsylvania, the people who settled it, and the industry rising within it.
Makefield was the township named in the report of the jury appointed by the first Court in 1692 to subdivide the county. In the words of the report, it was designated “The uppermost township being called Makefield,” which included all the territory now comprised in Upper and Lower Makefield until 1753, when the township was divided. Lower Makefield is bounded northwest by Upper Makefield, northeast by the Delaware River, southeast by Falls, and southwest by Middletown and Newtown Townships.
Makefield as a name has puzzled investigators. However, the word seems to be, without much doubt, a corruption of Macclesfield or Maxfield, both these names being used interchangeably in the eighteenth century for the same populous town in Cheshire, England, eighteen miles from Manchester. At Macclesfield is a Quaker Meeting House, and a few early Pennsylvania immigrants came from that town. General Davis was no doubt correct in assuming that the name Makefield is due to an early English pronunciation of Macclesfield or Maxfield and that the spelling was made to accord with the pronunciation.
Early settlers of Lower Makefield were English Friends and included families of Hough, Yardley, Briggs, Harding, Cutler, Croasdale, Taylor, and Story. They worshipped in Falls Monthly Meeting House until 1750, when Falls granted the request of Makefield Friends for a separate meeting. Makefield Meeting House was finished in 1752. It occupies a small tract of land near Dolington on the northwest side of the line between the two Makefields.
A half mile southeast of Yardley is the ancient Slate Hill graveyard. It is reputed to have been the first burial place for Friends in the township and was used down to about 1800.