Durham was organized in 1775. Durham, at the extreme north point of the county, and the last of the original townships to be organized, was one of the earliest in the upper end to be settled. The Proprietary government knew of the deposit of iron ore in the Durham hills as early as 1698. Durham furnace was one of the earliest erected in the United States. Original owners of the tract were Jeremiah Langhorne, of Bucks, Anthony Morris, James Logan, Charles Reed, Robert Ellis, George Fitzwater, Clement Plumstead, William Allen, Andrew Bradford, John Hopkins, Thomas Linsley, Joseph Turner, Griffith Owen, and Samuel Powell, of Philadelphia, formed themselves into a stock company for the purpose of making iron.
The first meeting between the Indians and participants in the Walking Purchase, which controversially established boundaries for land to be owned by the colonists, took place in Durham in 1734. It was on the river bank at the mouth of Durham Creek that Robert Durham built the first Durham boat, which was used to transport freight along the Delaware River as well as George Washington and his troops on Christmas Eve in 1776. Interesting buildings: Durham Grist Mill on Durham Road, operated for 147 years after its construction in 1820. Some of the original Durham Furnace, which closed in 1789, was used as part of the mill's foundation walls. Durham Furnace was a water powered charcoal furnace making cannon and shot for colonial wars and the American Revolution. One time owners inclluded James Logan and George Taylor (a signer of the Declaration of Independence).

The Durham boat, known to history because it figured so largely in Washington’s Christmas Night crossing of the Delaware, was the first of the tide-propelled freight craft to appear on the river. The boat was used by the Durham Iron Company as early as 1727, to transport the product of the Durham forges to Trenton and Philadelphia and to bring back necessary provisions and supplies. The usual Durham boat was flat-bottomed and had vertical sides which ran parallel to each other up to a point 12 or 14 feet from the end, where they began to taper. It was constructed of sturdy inch-and-a-quarter oak planks, and measured 60 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 42 inches deep. Its draft was 3 1/2 inches when light and 28 inches loaded; it could carry 150 barrels of flour or 600 bushels of corn. Downstream it was possible to load it with as much as 17 tons, but 2 tons was the limit upstream. It took three men to direct its progress. In going downstream they made every use of the current and employed their 12- to 18-foot “setting-poles,” shod with iron, merely for steering. Going upstream, the poles were used for propelling the boat, the men walking back and forth on “walking boards” built on the sides of the Durham boat, the better to gain a maximum effect from the application of their strength at the ends of the poles.

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