Hulmeville Historic District

Hulmeville is a village of 119 resources in lower Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and its development began in 1792, when John Hulme started buying land and buildings in the mill settlement then called Milford Mills. Hulme and his sons assembled grist, oil, saw, fulling and tanning operations, a woolen factory, an inn, a store, a post office in 1809 and, in 1814, the county's first bank. Most buildings are modest vernacular houses from the late eighteenth to early twentieth centuries, showing details of Federal, Greek Revival, Victorian and Second French Empire styles, usually two and a half stories tall and set close to the sidewalk. Its importance rests on its role as a leading industrial and commercial center in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when it rivaled New Hope and Morrisville in mills, and on its surviving collection of houses and shops. Johnson's Hall, an 1871 three-story Italianate building, and the Barkley Mill, built in 1880, are among its key landmarks. Residential growth slowed after 1920, leaving the village with a largely intact historic character.