The following is quoted from Thomas Murphy's 1928 History of Lackawanna County . 1 (Remember that references to now or today refer to 1928 and do not necessarily reflect life in 2003. While you sometimes still see the township referred to as Lehigh, generally it is now called Thornhurst.)
As shown on the first map of Lackawanna, what is now called Lehigh (sic) Township was designated as Bucks. When the county was organized the southwestern line ran from the mouth of Choke Creek up along that stream to a point in line with the easterly boundary of Bear Creek Township and thence to the southeasterly corner of that township. Bucks Township was organized in 1833 and named in honor of Samuel Buck, a pioneer settler. To avoid the confusion of two townships of the same name in different counties abutting on each other, Bucks in Lackawanna was changed to Lehigh in 1880. The new name was derived from the river which flows along the eastern boundary and divides Lackawanna and Monroe counties.
Lehigh, like Bucks Township in Luzerne, is mountainous. Bear Lake, originally called Beaver, one of the largest natural bodies of water in the county, is in Lehigh Township. Its outlet is Pond Creek which flows into the Lehigh at Gouldsboro. Buckeye and Sand Spring creeks are other waterways in the township. In the fifties and sixties the biggest lumbering activity in Luzerne County was in Bucks along the Lehigh. Not only was there a great quantity of timber cut and floated down the Lehigh, but bark was peeled to supply the tanneries at Gouldsboro and White Haven. Shortly after his becoming interested in the development of the headwaters of the Lehigh, Henry W Drinker constructed a road twelve miles along from Stoddartsville to where he built his home in what is now Clifton Township. Drinker also cut a boat passage through the brush and beaver dams in the Lehigh for a dozen miles north of Stoddartsville. Stoddartsville was then the only village in Bucks Township. When Zadoch Pratt and Jay Gould erected a large tannery on the Lehigh in 1856 in what beacme known as Gouldsboro, that community became the business center of the upper section of Bucks. The so-called plank road, built in 1858, runs through Lehigh Township from the old tannery to the present day Gouldsborough, originally Sand Cut on the Lackawanna Railroad. It was built by Gould to get in supplies of hides, etc, and ship out leather. The road intersects the old Drinker turnpike, now Lackawanna Trail, in Clifton Township. The Great Swamp or "Shades of Death," through which many fled in escaping after the Wyoming massacre in 1778 is in old Bucks, just outside the southerly boundary line of Lehigh. It was in that locality that one of the earliest land swindles in the region was attempted back in 1810 when the Great Swamp district was purchased by Philadelphians and the "City of Rome" project launched. Lots were sold and a president of the town and 18 councilmen were "elected" before the scheme was exposed by Charles Miner, Esq, in the Wilkes-Barre Gleaner .
Isaac Lewis is credited with having been the first settler and first to build a frame house in Lehigh. In 1842 he purchased land from Charles Terwilliger along the Lehigh River in the southeast corner of the township. Settlement in the township is principally along the Lehigh. Other early settlers were: S and H Nagel, G Stinger, A A Chase, G Chamberlain, A Herbin, Adam Gatt, J Williams, J L Scott, and P Vandom. The house of Mrs G F Wardnall on he plank road was early used as a school. The "brier Patch" school was built in 1840. The first sawmill was built by D Nagel near the old highway leading to Choke Creek.
For many years Stoddartsville furnished the nearest church facilities to the people of Lehigh Township. There was a Methodist Church in Stoddartsville as early as 1820. This church was served from Wilkes-Barre. Along about 1845 an itinerant began preaching at the "Brier Patch" school house. Out of this grew the Methodist Society, which later about 1857 or 1858 built a church in Gouldsboro.