The phrase "the body politic" is often used to characterize the character of nations, states, counties and towns. If you only take this analogy a little bit too literally, you can compare it to the human body: schools as the brain, communications as the nervous system, and so on. It is unavoidable to identify the circulatory system as the complex system of transportation systems that link together the communities that make up the social fabric.

The transportation network of Bucks County, just as elsewhere, involved not only roads, but the rivers and streams to the extent that they were navigable. The Delaware River was clear sailing from the Atlantic Ocean as far inland as the Falls of the Delaware between Morrisville and Trenton, New Jersey. Beyond the Falls, the river could easily bear downstream traffic in the form of rafts that were made up of tree trunks that were lashed together and brought down on wild rides during the high water that spring thaws. (Sometimes they broke apart, and owners posted notices in the newspapers to find their property. Wise loggers used branding irons to mark individual logs.)

Durham boats, named for the Durham Ironworks at the northern tip of Bucks County, hauled iron and other commodities downstream. The trip down was relatively easy, although treacherous in the rapids. They could be returned much more laboriously upstream, using oars or poles shoved down to the riverbed to move them against the current. Durham boats achieved immortal fame as the boats used by General George Washington's army in his perilous crossing of the Delaware prior to the Battle of Trenton in 1776.

The Delaware River was undoubtedly a major highway through much of Bucks County's history. Where the river intersected with the land-based road system, ferries and fords were significant way-stations in the network. Ferries crossed the river at more or less regular intervals from Dunks Ferry in Bensalem to Durham Ferry.

All of the river towns that are today some of the most historic and architecturally interesting started out as ferry crossings. Bristol, Morrisville, Yardley, Washington Crossing, New Hope, Centre Bridge, Lumberville, Point Pleasant, Upper Black Eddy and Riegelsville all trace their heritage to the old river crossings. Some of these played important roles in the American Revolution, in addition to being significant in the everyday life and economic prosperity not just of the villages that grew up in the immediate vicinity, but also of the farms and inland towns on both sides of the river.

Of course, the roads that led to the ferry crossings were of equal importance in daily life. Many of them were great arteries in the commercial circulation system. You can still follow them today: the Bristol Pike, formerly known as the King's Highway; the Bristol Road, Second Street Pike, the Durham Road, Easton Road, Old York Road, Bethlehem Pike, Allentown Road and many more. Their historic names are more interesting, and more telling of their destinations, than the route numbers that commonly identify them today.

Just as towns grew up around the ferries, they also sprang into existence where major roads intersected. Newtown, Langhorne, Doylestown, Quakertown, and Sellersville are among the thriving communities today that trace their histories to old crossroads.

Many of the more important roads that were laid out in the colonial period were surveyed on the authority of provincial officials in Philadelphia, then the capital, who were concerned with the growth of prosperity in Pennsylvania in general. Multitudes of smaller roads were needed as well, providing access from local farms and villages to the more significant highways. The county courts were in charge of laying out these byways.

Typically, a group of local citizens wrote up a petition to the court, laying out the need for a formally recognized road for their convenience. Often, the petitioners cited the necessity of the new road to provide access to "meeting, mill and market," reflecting the three most important elements in their lives: access to religious meeting places, mills where they could have their grain ground, and markets where they could sell the produce of their farms.

The justices of the court would appoint a special jury to view the proposed route and come back with a report complete with a surveyor's exact specifications. Often there were disputes about the proposed route, or the necessity of the new road in the first place. Disputes could go on for months or years.

Bucks County was, of course, overwhelmingly agricultural in its character throughout the 18th, the 19th, and much of the 20th centuries. And although Bucks County was remarkably diverse in the ethnic and religious background on its inhabitants, religious services were very important in every community. English Quakers, Welsh Baptists, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, German Lutherans, Reformed and Mennonites, as well as members of many other religious communities took their responsibilities seriously.

A multitude of small villages still today convey the character of these old communities. From Fallsington to Forest Grove to Springtown to Ottsville to Carversville, many of these places remain charming today. Others have been subsumed by modern development.

Today we can travel hundreds of miles in a single day if we choose to. Not so in the slower pace of olden times. People needed places to stay along the route of their journeys. Whether they were farmers taking their produce to market in Philadelphia, assemblymen or congressmen on their way to carry out their duties, or people seeking out a new life on America's western frontier, they depended on the hospitality of others along the way. Inns and taverns are probably as old as human civilization, with a long history in Europe. Nearly every town and village in Bucks County has a historic hostelry of this sort, or used to. Many historic inns remain today, sometimes significantly remodeled or entirely rebuilt, but still at their historic locations.

Taverns of the 18th and 19th centuries hosted not just people. They had to have extensive stables for the horses that the people rode or that pulled their wagons. Many had a "hostler" whose job it was to care for the horses. Inns along important trade routes also had corrals to accommodate the herds of cattle, flocks of sheep, and even gaggles of geese that were being driven to market. Taverns were also often the sites of auctions of horses and other livestock, again requiring the presence of stockyards.

The transportation networks of the past are the arteries that link the historic towns of Bucks County to one another. Many of our towns are easy to understand if you visit them on their own.

But if you follow a route, say, from New Hope to Lahaska to Buckingham to Doylestown to Chalfont, you can follow a road that people have used for more than two centuries and begin to understand the pace of life in times past.

The same kind of experience can arise in a trip from Bristol to Langhorne to Newtown to Pineville to Buckingham … You get the idea.