Haycock Township Historicial Society

A year of research, interviews, and retracing the woodland walks of my childhood have resulted in seeing my name, for the first time, on the cover of a book. For all the journalistic bylines I’ve had in my life, there is something entirely different about acquiring the title of “author”.

“Our Lost Tohickon Valley” is a look inside the lives, families, homes, and farms of Upper Bucks County during the mid-Twentieth Century. Those halcyon days after World War II when the country was booming and the middle-class was growing.

For nearly twenty years there was a place tucked away at the base of Haycock Mountain in Upper Bucks County where no one locked their doors, where children disappeared for hours unsupervised, and where people earned respect through hard work and honesty.

Then the government came calling with their right of Eminent Domain. The result was shattered lives, lost legacies, and historic structures that met a watery grave.

Today, at Nockamixon State Park, families picnic and sail on what was once a place that, like the mystical Brigadoon, exists now only in our minds.

As the book tour rolls out, my co-author, Marjorie Goldthorp Fulp and I look forward to sharing the many stories we have collected in the course of writing about “Our Lost Tohickon Valley”.

And we know of what we write; Margie and I both lost our family homes to the park.  This book has given us the chance to reclaim our memories…one last time. My thanks to the Haycock Historical Society for the opportunity.