Untold tales about Bucks County’s landmark Bowman’s Hill

By Carl LaVO

Bowman’s Hill in Solebury has been written about and talked about forever.

It rises steeply from the Delaware River just below New Hope. It’s most noteworthy today for its 125-foot-high observation tower on the summit, its hiking trails and wildflower preserve.

In 1913, local physician J.E. Scott delivered a lengthy narrative on the hill’s history to the congregation of a local church. The doctor began, “As one travels along the Delaware river, noted in song and story for its quiet, romantic beauty, and for its sparkling, crystal clear water, one of the objects that most deeply impresses and attracts the traveler is Bowman’s Hill.”

Here are seven things the doc revealed that you might not know about the Bucks County landmark:

The other manor

Bowman’s Hill was once considered a site for William Penn’s other manor.

Pennsylvania’s founder in the late 1600s ordered his surveyor to map out boundaries of a 7,500-acre private estate centered around “Nenehawcachung,” the Native American name for the mount before it became Bowman’s Hill. It was to be Penn’s second estate, his first being Pennsbury Manor in Falls Township.

It once had a copper mine

In 1709, John Pidcock took possession of a piece of the manor, including the hill where he had been living. Industrious, he built a sawmill and gristmill powered by Pidcock Creek at the foot of the mountain.

Seeking fortune, Mr. P dug a copper mine 60 feet into the north face of the hill near the grist mill. He hollowed out two large chambers where copper was discovered but not enough. He closed the mine, sold his property and moved to Jersey. New owners demolished the dig. The grist mill remained standing as it does today on Route 32 (River Road).

How it became Bowman’s Hill

John Bowman preceded Pidcock. The English surgeon owned Burlington Island on the Delaware River estuary off Burlington City, New Jersey. There, he built a warehouse for export/import goods.
In old age, he loved the solitude of the hill 25 miles upriver. In 1697, he passed away in Pidcock’s house and was buried on the summit. A stone with the letter “B’ carved in it was placed over the grave and later moved. A superstition on the mountain is lie next to the grave and repeat the words, “Bowman, who killed you?” He will answer, “Nothing.”

Is Captain Kidd’s gold buried here?

Notorious pirate Captain Kidd hired Bowman earlier in life as his ship’s surgeon. When Kidd made off with British gold years later, he sailed up the Delaware River to find Bowman and have him hide it. Kidd surrendered in New York, hoping authorities would free him. Instead, they hung him in London.

The story persists that Kidd’s gold is buried somewhere on Bowman’s Hill. I told my grandchildren Margaux and Dashiell the story as we strolled along the summit a few years back, each eager to find anything shiny. No gold that day.

The little boy found on the hill

In Colonial days, two men were out chopping wood on the hill when they heard distant cries. They thought it was a panther. When the cries continued, the men investigated and found a 2-year-old boy, lost and wailing.

Asked his name, he responded in baby talk, “Peter can’t tell.” He kept repeating it. When no parents or relatives could be found, a kind-hearted farmer adopted the boy who echoed “Peter can’t tell” so often he grew up as “Peter Can’tell.” He married and reared many children. The family name evolved over the years into “Cattel.”

Bowman’s treasure

Aaron McCarty was a steamboat captain who before his death at home on Bowman’s Hill confided this story to Dr. Scott:

“One evening there was a rap at the door. A total stranger presented himself and asked to be lodged overnight. The next day we walked together over the hill, the stranger showing peculiar knowledge and interest. He divulged the fact his name was Bowman, a relative of the doctor, and that his home was in western Pennsylvania.

“He said Bowman’s treasure is buried in the hill and he had plans and diagrams at home that would lead to its discovery. He left with the avowed purpose of returning the next year to look for the gold. He never came. Word was received his house was burned and he and the precious diagrams with it.”

It kept George Washington’s troops safe

George Washington retreated to Bucks County in 1776 to defend Philadelphia after a disastrous defeat in New York with the loss of 4,500 soldiers — half his army. Survivors camped below Bowman’s Hill on Dec. 8 with sentries posted on the summit and on nearby Jericho Mountain in anticipation of a British invasion to end the American Revolution.

Signals flashed from the mountains kept the rebel army in touch with commanders and their base in Newtown. Using an armada of row boats, Washington re-crossed the Delaware on Christmas night to seize Trenton and capture 1,000 British soldiers.

You might say the beginning of the end for Britain began at Bowman’s Hill.

Sources include “Historic Account of Bowman’s Hill” by J.E. Scott, M.D. read at Thompson Memorial Church in Solebury on May 27, 1913 and published by the Bucks County Historical Society in 1917.
Carl LaVO whose history column appears in the Intelligencer and Bucks County Courier Times can be reached at carllavo0@gmail.com