By force of intellect, activity of mind, strong pre-disposition to take part in public affairs, integrity, and intelligence, the Pemberton family for nearly a hundred years was the most prominent in Pennsylvania." 1 The ancestral home of the Pemberton family is located on the Newportville-Fallsington Road in Bucks County and has been known for two hundred and ninety years as "Bolton Farm." Historically and architecturally, the house is one of the most significant in Pennsylvania; nearly every one of its inhabitants since the days of William Penn has influenced the course of history in the state.

Now that the attempted demolition of the house is an issue of the past and restoration work is beginning, a reevaluation of the historical and architectural importance of Bolton Farm is in order.

Bolton Farm has been altered considerably over the course of nearly three centuries of use and what now exists is a complex structure of some twenty-seven rooms built and rebuilt as demands upon it have changed and expanded. Architectural evidence alone is sometimes conflicting and it is not the purpose of this paper to affirm indisputably certain dates of construction and physical appearances. Rather, the purpose is coordinate the architectural evidence at hand with the historical evidence that has been researched up to now, in order to gain a clearer picture of the history of the house as a whole and to elucidate the issues which will become increasingly important as restoration work proceeds.

The first issue to arise is that of the original date of the house. After their families had arrived, on November 17, 1683, Phineas Pemberton purchased five hundred acres of land and built a house, probably of English frame construction which was called Grove place. Finding this location damp and unhealthy, they finished another house in 1687, five miles from the Delaware, the beginning of the Piedmont. This house was called "Pemberton" or Bolton" because the family was from Bouton, Lancashire. This lintel of this house is in the possession of the Pennsylvania Historical Society and reads: