Eakin, John, Farm

Along the south slope of a hill in Springfield Township, upper Bucks County, stands a farm complex built around Kooker's Tavern, a stone house raised in three sections between about 1739 and 1773. Stephen Twining built the east end, Jacob Kooker, a stone mason, added the middle section and tavern facilities, and a datestone above the front door carries the initials and date 1773 for the final west section. The English and German building traditions show in the two halves of the house. Nearby, the three-story stone Eakin Barn, built in the second quarter of the 19th century, has original hewn chestnut framing and a closed forebay. Other features include a late 18th-century springhouse set in a pond used as a fish hatchery, a mid-18th-century smokehouse, and the ruins of an early 19th-century summer kitchen. The property was used for milling, tavern keeping, lime burning, fish farming, and crop and dairy farming through 1947. It is important for its record of these combined activities and for its surviving stone buildings.