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Northampton Township
Historical Commission 55 Township Road Richboro, PA 18954 
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Northampton
Historical Commission
(215) 357-6800 |
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Cemetery Serves as Record
of the Lives of History Set In Stone Twenty veterans of the Revolutionary War are buried in the Addisville Reformed Church cemetery, as are Northampton's early settlers. By James E. Stanton
.....If these old gravestones could talk. Buried beneath them in the Addisville Cemetery are some of the people who helped shape not only the history of Northampton, but also the nation. Time has left some of the stones illegible. But others, bearing the names of the township's early settlers, can be read with little trouble: Bennett, Cornell, Corson, DuBois, Krusen, Lefferts, VanArtsdalen, Van Sant, Wynkoop. "The oldest gravestone I can read dates back to 1771, but there must have been people buried here around 1752, when the church was started," said Virginia Geyer, a member of the Northampton Historical Commission and the Addisville Reformed Church across the street on Route 232, which maintains the cemetery. According to Geyer, the graveyard is a resting place for 20 veterans of the American Revolution. Among them is Henry Wynkoop, a judge and congressman as well as a Revolutionary War patriot. Wynkoop's three wives are also are buried there. Geyer said Wynkoop's first wife, Susannah, was most unfortunate. Her body was found in a well on the family homestead after a visit from Hessian troops. "The British sent the Hessians out here to bring in any prominent citizens," Geyer said. "Susannah was still weak from the birth of a child, so it was figured she must have fallen into the well." The cemetery, no longer in use, comprises only about an acre of land in the middle of Richboro. The unpretentious plot goes unnoticed by most motorists who hasten up and down Second Street Pike. A 4-foot-high stone wall screens its interior. But the stones have historians and annals to speak for them. Northampton resident Betty Luff keeps a record of her ancestors, the Cornells, who are buried in the graveyard. "There are 22 Cornells alone resting in that cemetery and almost as many Corsons and Bennetts," said Luff, who also is a member of the historical commission. The farm of one of Luff's ancestors, James C. Cornell, is the subject of a painting done in 1848 by primitive artist Edward Hicks. The work now hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Addisville,
named after Amos Addis, an early settler, was combined with an adjoining
village, Leedomville, by the middle of the 19th century to form Richboro.
Group
wants to preserve Home
Sweet Home The
Pleasant Plains Public School People
Are Flocking to Northampton Cornerstone
Reveals Old Memories Landmark
Restaurant to Make a Move A
Tale of Two Buildings A
Lightning Move for the Spread Eagle Spread
Eagle's Move Went Well 'Citizen
of the Month' Knows Her Town's History
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