Center Bridge Historic District

Center Bridge is a small cross-roads village on the Delaware River in Solebury Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, roughly 45 miles north of Philadelphia. Its 62 buildings include stone and plaster houses, most dating from the early and mid-nineteenth century, sheltered by old trees and set between the Delaware Division Canal and Chestnut Ridge. The settlement grew around a ferry and inn established by Joseph Mitchell after he bought land there in 1765, and a toll bridge later built across the river by Isaiah Paxson and Mitchell's son. Trade along the bridge and the canal, which began operating in about 1830, sustained the village through the nineteenth century. Its houses are regarded as good examples of the vernacular Georgian and Federal styles common to southeastern Pennsylvania. In 1898 painter Edward W. Redfield bought a farm there, and with other artists he linked the village to the New Hope art colony.