Fordhook Farm

Fordhook is a sixteen-acre portion of a larger farm on Lower State Road in Doylestown, Bucks County, holding twelve contributing buildings and two structures dating from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century. Its core is a fieldstone main house, barn, springhouse and icehouse from the working farm, with the house, barn and springhouse listed in the 1798 Federal Direct Tax for New Britain Township. W. Atlee Burpee bought the farm in 1888 and used it as the first experimental and seed production farm of the Burpee Seed Company, which grew into the nation's foremost seed business. Hundreds of flower and vegetable varieties were developed here, new hybrids were invented, and the company's annual catalogue was designed on the property. Seed trials and visiting students linked the farm to agricultural education, and Delaware Valley College, begun in 1896 on adjoining land, was closely associated with it. The seed house, greenhouses and other Burpee-era buildings survive largely intact. The main house combines Federal and Greek Revival interiors from the early 1800s with an addition designed by Charles Lee of Philadelphia around 1902.