Bucks County Gravity Hill and Witch Country Folklore
Buckingham, PA
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Public road, no cost.
Access
Limited Access
Paved rural road with hills; narrow in sections
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1835 · Lenape Settlement History · Underground Railroad · Bucks County Colonial Architecture
The name Holicong is a phonetic rendering of a Lenni Lenape term for the natural spring at this location — a spring connected to an underground river still known locally as the Konkey Hole. The Lenape camped here, and the spring was considered a significant site before European contact. The village's earliest documented European name was Grintown, in use before 1800. It became Greenville and then Holicong on June 2, 1881, when Edwin J. Kirk was appointed its first postmaster.
The village retains a notable concentration of eighteenth-century buildings. The Martha Hampton School for Girls, opened around 1824 by sisters Martha Hampton and Hannah Lloyd, operated from the long white structure that still stands at the northwest crossroads corner.
Mount Gilead African Methodist Episcopal Church, at 1940 Holicong Road, was originally built of logs in 1835. Its founders were runaway enslaved people, and the church functioned as a documented stop on the Underground Railroad. The building was reconstructed in stone in 1852. The Library of Congress holds survey photographs of the structure from the Historic American Buildings Survey.
The road runs through a long, narrow, hilly corridor that in the early twentieth century became associated with local legends involving witches tied to Buckingham Mountain. The St. James Episcopal Church cemetery nearby contains what locals call the Witch's Chair, near the grave of one Merritt P. Wright, thought by neighbors to have been a witch in life.
Sources
The gravity hill on Holicong Road is one of those locations where the search is as much the attraction as the phenomenon itself. Local accounts consistently place it within a half mile of the intersection of Holicong Road and Lower Mountain Road, near Mount Gilead AME Church. The experience: stop the car at the low point of a particular grade, shift to neutral, and the vehicle reportedly rolls toward the hill rather than away from it.
Whether this reflects an optical illusion created by the surrounding terrain, a genuine anomaly in the road's grade, or something less easily categorized is unresolved. Investigators who published their search results in 2010 described two nights of driving the area without locating the precise spot — driving for two hours on each occasion, testing multiple sections of road — and returned without a conclusive answer.
The witch connection comes from Buckingham Mountain and its surrounding roads. Holicong Road passes through a stretch of dense tree cover and near a church cemetery containing the so-called Witch's Chair — a stone seat beside the grave of Merritt P. Wright, who was believed by neighbors to have practiced folk magic. Sitting in the chair at midnight, according to local tradition, results in unseen hands encircling whoever occupies the seat.
The original Shadowlands account of the road adds a third element: the description of cars feeling pulled backward on the uphill section during attempts to leave, accompanied by fog and sounds in the dark. These accounts are consistent with the broader gravity hill narrative but have not been independently corroborated.
Notable Entities
Navigate the narrow, winding road toward Buckingham Mountain and locate the gravity hill section — reported within half a mile of the intersection of Holicong Road and Lower Mountain Road, near Mount Gilead AME Church. Put the car in neutral at the marked low point and observe whether it rolls uphill. Note that multiple investigators have spent hours searching for the exact spot without success — part of the appeal is the hunt itself.
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