Bucks County Government and Courts System
AN EDUCATIONAL GUIDE BUCKS COUNTY Government & Courts System www.BucksCounty.org BUCKS COUNTY, ea’s reputation as an artists’ colony and the Bucks County Playhouse PENNSYLVANIA as a popular summer theater. HISTORY Today, over 625,000 people reside One of the original counties in a county with approximately established by William Penn 8,800 acres of county-owned in the 17th century, Bucks parks, 13,000 acres in state parks County was named for Buck- and gamelands, colleges and uni- inghamshire, England, Penn’s Founded: versities, museums, quaint villag- ancestral home. .It is located 1682 es, sprawling farms, verdant rolling in the southeastern portion County Seat: hills, woodlands and waterways. of Pennsylvania between Doylestown Philadelphia, Allentown and Population: Despite a changing landscape and Trenton, NJ and bounded 625,249* rapid residential, commercial, and on the east by the Delaware Geography: industrial growth, the county is River. Bucks County was a 608 square steeped in its rich traditions and frontier territory when Penn miles of land demonstrates an enduring com- entered into a purchase treaty and 15.8 mitment to its natural resources. with the native Lenni Lenape square miles Bucks County remains an historic on July 15, 1682. The land of water. blend of scenic beauty, agricul- was soon settled by Quakers, Comprised of ture, arts and economic growth. Swedes and Germans, skilled 23 boroughs tradesmen and farmers who and 31 THE SEAL OF established a government in townships. BUCKS COUNTY 1683. In March, 1683, Wil- *U.S. Census liam Penn’s Council The county seat was at Bris- Bureau, ordered “that the tol from 1705 to 1726 when 2010 Census seal of the County of it was moved 10 miles north, Bucks be a tree and to Newtown, which served as a vine.” Penn had written that in Bucks the county seat for 87 years.
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