Editing Doylestown, Pennsylvania (section)

===19th century===
On January 1, 1802, a post office was established in present-day Doylestown. Charles Stewart, the first postmaster, carried letters to recipients in the bell-shaped crown of his high beaver hat as he walked about the village. When Stewart died on February 7, 1804, his son-in-law Enoch Harvey became the next postmaster. On October 9, 1804 Harvey advertised in the ''Pennsylvania Correspondent'', published in Doylestown, of a list of letters remaining in the post office for Wm. R. Hanna, Esq., Newtown; Doct. Felix Robertson, Bucks County; Robert Wehir, Shamony, Bucks County; Robert A. Farmer, Esq., Birdsborough; Israel Childs, Buckingham.<ref name="PlaceNamesDoylestown"/>

In 1815, the first church was erected; it was followed by the construction of a succession of churches for various congregations throughout the 19th century.<ref name="PlaceNamesDoylestown">MacReynolds, George, ''Place Names in Bucks County, Pennsylvania'', Doylestown, Bucks County Historical Society, Doylestown, PA, 1942, Doylestown Borough.</ref>

As the population of Central and Upper Bucks County grew throughout the 18th and into the 19th century, discontent developed with the county seat's location in [[Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania|Newtown]], where it had been since 1725. Eight petitions with a total of 184 signers were submitted to the General Assembly, some as early as 1784, requesting the move of the county seat to Doylestown. Among the signers were Andrew Armstrong, John Armstrong, John Davis, Andrew Denison, Jesse Fell, Joseph Fell, John Ingham (of Ingham Springs), Michael Frederick Kolb, Zebulon M. Pike (of Lumberton), Samuel Preston, Robert Shewell, Walter Shewell, and Fulkerd Sebring.<ref name="PlaceNamesDoylestown"/> 

The [[Pennsylvania General Assembly]] approved the move by an Act on February 28, 1810, and the first Court session was opened on May 11, 1813. An outgrowth of Doylestown's new courthouse was the development of "lawyers row", a collection of [[Federal architecture|Federal-style]] offices. One positive consequence of early 19th-century investment in the new county seat was organized fire protection, which began in 1825 with the Doylestown Fire Engine Company.

A bill to erect Doylestown into a borough was introduced into Legislature in February 1830, but failed, as well as a second attempt in the session of 1832. "An Act to erect the Village of Doylestown, in the County of Bucks, into a Borough" was passed and signed into law by Governor [[Joseph Ritner]] on April 16, 1838.<ref name="PlaceNamesDoylestown"/>

An electric telegraph station was built in 1846, and the [[North Pennsylvania Railroad]] completed a branch to Doylestown in 1856. The first gas lights were introduced in 1854. Because of the town's relatively high elevation and a lack of strong water power, substantial industrial development never occurred and Doylestown evolved to have a professional and residential character.<ref name="PlaceNamesDoylestown"/>

During the mid-19th century, several large tracts located east of the courthouse area were subdivided into neighborhoods. The next significant wave of development occurred after the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], when the {{convert|30|acre|ha|adj=on}} Magill property to the southwest of the town's core was subdivided for residential lots.{{cn|date=November 2023}}

In 1869, Doylestown established a water works. The first telephone line arrived in 1878, the same year that a new courthouse was erected.  1897 saw the first of several trolley lines connecting Doylestown with [[Willow Grove, Pennsylvania|Willow Grove]], Newtown, and Easton. A private sewer system and treatment plant were authorized in 1903. The borough took over and expanded sewer service to about three-quarters of the town in 1921.{{cn|date=November 2023}}