Interviewee: Joseph Magill
Date of birth/age at interview: 1909/93
Interviewers: Sally Jagoe, David Benner
Interview date: February 11, 2002
Interview location: Magill residence
Interview length: 63 minutes
Time span discussed: 1920 to 2000
Summary: Joe Magill was a member of a long-time Solebury family. He talks extensively of the family and their farms and about life on the farm. He talks about local events like Rice’s Market and the Barnum and Bailey Circus wintering horses in the area. Joe attended the Solebury one-room school, walking from Paxson Road. He also reminisces about many local events in his childhood.
Time markers:
01:00 – Carversville Grange; father a tax collector
04:23 – traces family members, farms; first cousin of James Magill, Mayor of New Hope
05:00 – blacksmith in Solebury
06:30 – Paxton family members and many farms
08:40 – family and farms
14:30 – Lambertville and mills brought money and customers for delivering milk and vegetables from farm
15:00 – Raven Rock railroad and the town that is no longer there, about 1917
24:00 – Rice’s Market, Lincoln Rice, and the auction business there starting about 1922
46:00 – price of 6 acre farm $3400 in 1930s
50:00 – his first ice cream cone, 5 cents; Lumberville covered bridge toll, 10 cents
51:00 – Barnum and Bailey wintered horses around Lumberville: story of where, how horses got there by train to Raven Rock
56:00 – Lumberville bridge condemned in 1904, taken down, made of chestnut wood
58:00 – Lambertville-New Hope bridge and trolly
