History & local legend
The old millworkers’ houses along West Ferry Street in New Hope are associated with a legend of a missing baby. One version concerns a mill foreman’s wife; another makes the mother his daughter. Both include a neighbor who supposedly saw the foreman carrying away a small bundle after the newborn disappeared.
A man named Rick described an experience there to anthropologist Janny Li, who included it in her 2015 dissertation. During a Halloween ghost tour, Rick stood near the back of the group and heard a baby crying behind the houses. He looked for the child but could not find one. After the tour, the guide told him another woman had heard the sound too, although no baby had accompanied the group.
The corner of Ferry Street and Stockton Avenue has a related tradition of a woman dressed in white. Residents and tour accounts have also described crying and screams near the row houses.
Sources
- Janny Li, Spectral Science: Into the World of American Ghost Hunters, 2015 doctoral dissertation, pp. 108–109, interview with Rick
- Delaware County Ghosthunters, collected daughter version and the author’s own November walk along Ferry Street
- Visit Bucks County, first-person ghost tour and the report of a woman at Ferry and Stockton
- New Hope Historical Society, property research and 2026 interviews at Stone Row, 61–71 West Ferry Street
- OpenStreetMap, public junction of West Ferry Street and Stockton Avenue
