Gulph Mills: The Bird-in-Hand Store

The house standing here was built around seventeen eighty and served for decades as the Bird-in-Hand General Store, named for a tavern sign that hung nearby and gave the whole area its original name. In the colonial and early federal era, tavern signs served as the addresses of commercial districts: travelers navigated by them the way we navigate by landmarks today. Just southwest of this house stood a forge, part of the small industrial cluster that once made Gulph Mills a working community rather than simply a residential crossroads.

Both the store and the forge were eventually converted into residences as the area's character shifted. The name Gulph Mills itself refers to the gully, or gulf, cut by the creek here, and to the mills that once lined it during the region's early manufacturing years.