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James A. Michener's Doylestown Days Driving Tour
Visit some of the locations in Doylestown that were influential in forming the small town boy who became the world-renowned author and man of the world. From 1907 to 1925, Michener lived, worked and went to school in Doylestown and acquired the attributes - curiosity, determination, love of travel, introspection and observation - that he carried with him into the bigger world.
You will begin your trip at the James A. Michener Art Museum on Pine Street in Doylestown. In Michener's day this building served as the County prison otherwise known in that context as the Pine Street Hotel. In the museum's lobby is a tribute to Michener's impact on Doylestown as well as the world. On exhibit are his medals and awards, a list of his books made into films, photos of the eight houses where he lived in Doylestown, some of the music he enjoyed and the books he read. Most importantly is a look at the way he worked which includes his desk, with typewriter and manuscripts. This is the place to get a feel for the man and his work. To get a feel for the boy who lived in Doylestown get in your car. Please drive carefully through Doylestown and the surrounding area. Doylestown has been the County seat of Bucks County since 1813 and over time has also become a tourist destination. For most of the day and into the early evening the streets and sidewalks are bustling. Town maps are available from Doylestown Borough Hall.
Doylestown Friends Meetinghouse
The Doylestown Friends Meetinghouse is where Michener's mother Mabel met her first and only husband Edwin Michener. Edwin Michener's family was established in Bucks County family dating from around 1685. Mabel and Edwin had a son Robert Ezra. Edwin died in 1902 and ultimately Mabel and Robert Ezra moved out of the Michener household. James A. Michener was born in 1907 and during his life never knew his father.
Doylestown Presbyterian Church
The Doylestown Presbyterian Church that Michener attended with his mother in the late teens and early 1920's is on the right. Further down at the intersection of E. Court Street and Broad Street look to your right to see the Melinda Cox Free Library building where Michener got his first library card in August of 1917 at the age of ten. It is currently being used as an adjunct office building to the Court House. On the left side of the intersection is a parking lot, which was the former location of Doylestown High School where Michener distinguished himself in the classroom and the basketball court and as class president was listed in the 1925 yearbook as "Jimmy" Michener. Burpee Seed Company Farm
The campus of Delaware Valley College is on the right and further down on the left is the nationally known Burpee Seed Company Farm, which revolutionized the seed and plant business as well as hired young Jimmy Michener. Michener's mother Mable always struggled financially, so in the summer of 1918 when Michener was 11 he spent the summer working in the Burpee fields and ultimately earned $63 which for the most part he handed over to his mother. Michener's youth in poverty formed his work ethic and his ideas about money for the rest of his life. The Almshouse
The reason that the Michener family lived in 8 different houses in Doylestown was because they often couldn't pay the rent and were evicted. Regular meals were scarce. The family's well being depended on Mabel Michener's ability to stay healthy and work. When Mabel was unable to work, she depended on her sister Hannah Pollock to take in young Jim. Hannah's husband ran the Almshouse. James Michener experienced the end result of poverty from the men and women who resided there. He never forgot them and was forever influenced by them. Barrett's Hardware
Another of James Michener's odd jobs was to apprentice as a plumber to a Doylestown handyman in the basement of Barrett's Hardware. If not for the intervention of his Uncle Arthur, who maintained that Michener was intended for a better life, the poverty of his life and the deep-seated desire to help his mother may well have caused Michener to quit school and stay in Doylestown forever as a hardworking plumber. Not a bad life to be sure, but not the life for which it seems that Michener was destined.
Kenny's Newsstand
Look to the right to the store Head Over Heels, which is the current location of what was Kenny's Newsstand. Kenny's was a central location for Doylestown residents for many years—newspapers, books, candy, maps, tourist information, lottery tickets—and was always the location to buy a book hot off the presses from James A. Michener beginning with Hawaii in 1959.
Highland Farm was also where Hammerstein lived while he worked with Richard Rodgers and Josh Logan to make a musical out of Michener's Pulitzer Prize winning Tales of the South Pacific. Michener felt that the musical South Pacific was a wonderful adaptation of Tales of the South Pacific and was thrilled by the responses of theatergoers. In many ways however, Michener was still the boy from Doylestown, marked by his experiences with poverty and an absent father. He was never able to rest on his laurels and became one of the most prolific writers in the world. His books are still selling, as are movie adaptations of those books and one would be hard pressed to find anyone who has not seen South Pacific.
The information for this driving tour was gleaned from the following:
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