In a sense, Bristol lucked out. That’s what crossed my mind as I followed a winding trail between Otter Creek’s tidal basin and the municipal parking lot. The basin once was the terminus of the Delaware Canal when it opened in 1832 and made Bristol a busy coal shipping port.
As I walked past several historical markers, I was mindful of Albright Zimmerman’s detailed history of the canal. He pays close attention to a 19th century civil engineer who gave Atlanta its name and designed Pennsylvania’s famous Horseshoe Curve rail line.
J. Edgar Thomson also mapped out a plan to extend the canal another 19 miles to Philadelphia’s seaport. It would have created a faster means of getting coal from upstate Pennsylvania to market. Had that occurred, Bristol’s coal-driven prosperity as an export terminal at Otter Creek no doubt would have been stunted. It nearly happened.
Mary Anne and I years ago were eating breakfast at Karla’s on Mechanic Street in New Hope when someone mentioned “Pauline’s Trestle,” the most famous image of the silent film era. Afterwards, we took a closer look at the curving railroad trestle over Aquetong Creek about a block away, just upstream from the Bucks County Playhouse.
In 1914, as the story goes, young actress Pearl White was tied to the trestle’s tracks as a locomotive came careening down the line, threatening to run her over. It was the most memorable scene in the blockbuster movie serial, “The Perils of Pauline.”
I first got to know Robert Cleary at his home in D.C. My brother-in-law is one of those unforgettable characters you meet in life. He’s loud, passionate and funny with a dry wit. We were in our late 20s sharing some outstanding Japanese plum wine when all of a sudden he began reciting poetry in an Irish brogue. Maybe it was a sonnet by a Victorian poet. Thinking back to that moment, I like to imagine Bobby these days as a stout highlander with good hair in retirement with my sister Deb in Florida. He’s dressed in a kilt and sending up lazy rings of smoke from a Meerschaum pipe, all the while reciting memorized verse.
This is the time of year I like to contemplate Morrisville.
The tiny borough is where George Washington got the idea in early December 1776 to cross the Delaware River and attack the British in Trenton to save the American Revolution. Morrisville also was the home of Philadelphia banker Robert Morris. He was Washington’s go-to guy, delivering cash to George to keep the war going. After the war, Morris nearly convinced Congress to make his hometown the new nation’s capitol.
Morrisville has a lesser claim to fame. It’s here where a famous French general chose exile. Except for a twist of fate while living in town, Jean Victor Marie Moreau might have become a national hero in the War of 1812. As it turned out, Andrew Jackson became the hero of that conflict and became president.