I grew up near this park. As kids, in about 1970, we would ride our bikes into the park. It was a fairly new state park then. There was a place kids liked to explore. You'd go onto a field, and as I recall, there was a manhole-size hole that you could enter wherein you would drop down about three feet. Inside was a hub for several tunnels. I never explored them myself. The one time I dropped down into it with a friend (I was about twelve years old), there were other kids inside who were screaming that a bad man was in a tunnel. That, and because we did not have locks for our bikes, made us decide not to go on. Somewhere I heard that the tunnels were a part of the underground railroad, with escaped slaves sneaking inland from the river through them.
| Publication date | Jun 24, 2018 |
| Neighborhood |
I grew up near this park. As kids, in about 1970, we would ride our bikes into the park. It was a fairly new state park then. There was a place kids liked to explore. You'd go onto a field, and as I recall, there was a manhole-size hole that you could enter wherein you would drop down about three feet. Inside was a hub for several tunnels. I never explored them myself. The one time I dropped down into it with a friend (I was about twelve years old), there were other kids inside who were screaming that a bad man was in a tunnel. That, and because we did not have locks for our bikes, made us decide not to go on. Somewhere I heard that the tunnels were a part of the underground railroad, with escaped slaves sneaking inland from the river through them.
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Email : sjkc0072@aol.com
Comments : I learned from a member of the Bensalem Historical Society: "[t]he underground caves in Neshaminy State Park are not from the Underground Railroad time but from the Robert Logan era. Logan had an artist colony there and one of the men (Richard Blossom Farley) a famous painter and muralist lived in the house called the Father, Son and Holy Ghost house but during the summer he liked to live in the caves. We have pictures of some of the entrances. He lined the caves with concrete and even had furniture in it. The caves have been filled in so no one can fall into them [and get hurt]." I found this, https://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/cc830e34-2ce0-11e6-8133-2f4fcb092111.html.
Date : 2020-04-20
Email : sjkc0072@aol.com
Comments : There is an article on Black Alice in todays Philadelphia Inquirer, at B1, 2, by Edward Colimore. A slave, she ran Dunks Ferry at or near the site of this park in the 1800s. There is a special program coming up on her as part of a Juneteenth event (see the article). The article quotes historian Susan E. Klepp as stating that Alice may have been involved in the Underground Railroad, there are stories to that effect, but no conclusive proof.
Date : 2015-06-08