Open House & Deed Book Exhibit - Octagonal Schoolhouse
Corner Swamp Road and Second Street Pike (Route 232)
Wrightstown Township
Open House! Sunday, September 21, 2025 1:00-5:00 p.m.
The Schoolhouse was in operation from 1802-1850. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Special Exhibit: Bucks County Recorder of Deeds, Dan McPhillips will open the exhibit with remarks on Bucks County & Wrightstown History. Recently restored deed books with be available for viewing.
The display will highlight two major events in Wrightstown’s long, rich history:
FIRST SETTLERS—John and Jane Chapman’s 1684 land patent marks the arrival of Wrightstown’s first English settlers. Quakers escaping religious persecution, in June of that year the Chapmans and their three young children crossed the Atlantic on the ship Shield. The Chapman’s 500-acre purchase in October made them major landowners, and they became active in township and county affairs. The family helped establish Wrightstown Monthly Meeting of Friends (Quakers), and among their many descendants was Henry Chapman Mercer, founder of the Mercer Museum, Moravian Pottery and Tile Works, and Fonthill in Doylestown.
OCTAGONAL SCHOOL—Bucks County deeds also record the Octagonal School’s 1802 founding in a 99-year lease of the schoolhouse lot. In that year Wrightstown farmer Joseph Burson, “in Consideration of Having a School kept for the benefit and advantage of himself and others of the Neighborhood,” leased 34 perches (about 12,500 square feet) of land at the corner of his property to trustees of the proposed school. The historic eight-sided stone structure served its original purpose for half a century, and is Bucks County’s only remaining octagonal schoolhouse.
No charge for admission.
Open House & Deed Book Exhibit -Octagonal Schoolhouse
Corner Swamp Road and Second Street Pike (Route 232)
Wrightstown Township
Contact Betty Davis 215-598-7534 for more information.
