First of all, what is “quiet title”? A quiet title action in Pennsylvania is a civil lawsuit that resolves disputes over property ownership. It’s a legal process that can clear up uncertainties or competing claims about a property’s title.
So in other words, London Grove Township wants to take over this parcel? Yet I have found 3 references to them having the parcel since 1965?
I found an action in progress in the courts:
Is it related to this from the London Grove Historic Commission last May?
At the request of the Girl Scout (Cadets) Troup # 4136, the Cadets visited the Historical Commission to introduce their project proposal to make improvements to the African Union Church and Cemetery located at 816 North Guernsey Road in London Grove Township. Their excellent presentation included initiatives to improve signage, headstone and landscaping at the cemetery, the proposed schedule, budget needs, fund raising, volunteer efforts and next steps. The Historical Commission was very impressed with the scope of the Girl Scout efforts, and their enthusiasm in performing this initiative. Subsequent to this discussion, the Historical Commission queried vis-a-vis the Chester County Historical Commission, that the cemetery ownership was transferred to London Grove Township in the year 1965 via an order approved by a county judge. We discussed the next steps, and a milestone to continue this initiative; that being formal application to the Girl Scout organization for their approval, as well as an on-site presentation to the London Grove Township Board of Supervisors (8 May, 2024) to seek funding and approval. After a few questions which were thoughtfully responded to, the Historical Commission encouraged the team to press on. Several from the Historical Commission volunteered to assist in the improvements if/when the project was officially initiated.
So it appears that a troop of Girl Scouts want this place saved in perpetuity. I applaud them.
I do not quite understand why London Grove is posting a legal notice if the research on the part of Girl Scout Troop 4136 found that they were deeded the land parcel in 1965 unless it’s just another screwy thing with Chester County deed and land records? I mean that is entirely possible, right?
I was alarmed when I saw this notice, but am hoping because the Girl Scout Troop 4136 id invested in this site, it is a good thing this township is doing? Lots of questions given who the solicitor is on the legal notice and that Warren Kampf the former state rep who now shills for Chester County is on the court docket, but there is a lack of information out there. It appears London Grove Township actually does have some land development plans going on like every township but they have one of the worst websites so finding information without a blood hound is difficult. People it’s 2025, so why do so many municipal websites just plain suck and why isn’t everyone recording public meetings yet? (But I digress.)
So back to African Union Church AKA Solomon’s Temple AKA Solomon’s Temple Union American Methodist Episcopal Cemetery at 816 North Guernsey Road in West Grove. It’s yet ANOTHER abandoned AME (African Methodist Episcopal) site is what it appears to me. Somewhere Bishop Richard Allen is once again turning in his grave. I still want to know how the AME Church cannot keep track of their former church sites, graveyards, and history better?
John Bell, it is said, escaped from slavery in Maryland some time in the 1830s and became a huckster in the vicinity of Chatham. Fighting off a slave-catching party, he eventually accrued property and money, and on December 17th, 1849, for the consideration of $50, he gave an acre of land outside the village to James Wilmer, John Durnall, Perry Reed, William Lindsey, and John Mason, Trustees of the African Union Church, to erect what became known as Solomon’s Temple. A small cemetery was established on the ground surrounding the church.
John Bell died in 1873 and bequeathed a considerable sum to the church. Shortly thereafter, led to a small congregation meeting at the former Williamson Methodist Episcopal Church in nearby Penn Township. However, services continued on at Solomon’s Temple (which had become a U.A.M.E. Congregation in the 1860s) until the early 1900s.
By the 1960s, the church had fallen to ruin and the cemetery had become “covered with weeds, briars and saplings and many of the tombstones [were] leaning or [had] fallen over.” A group of township residents petitioned London Grove Township to take charge and maintain the grounds, and in 1965 a county Judge ordered just that. Today the cemetery is kept up by the township and is nominally open to the public.
John Bell, it is said, escaped from slavery in Maryland some time in the 1830s and became a huckster in the vicinity of Chatham, Chester County. After fighting off a slave-catching party, he eventually accrued property and money, and on December 17th, 1849, for the consideration of $50, he gave an acre of land outside the village to James Wilmer, John Durnall, Perry Reed, William Lindsey, and John Mason, Trustees of the African Union Church, to erect what became known as Solomon’s Temple. A small cemetery was established on the ground surrounding the church.
John Bell died in 1873 and bequeathed a considerable sum to the church. Shortly thereafter, led to a small congregation meeting at the former Williamson Methodist Episcopal Church in nearby Penn Township. However, services continued on at Solomon’s Temple (which had become a U.A.M.E. Congregation in the 1860s) until the early 1900s.
By the 1960s, the church had fallen to ruin and the cemetery had become “covered with weeds, briars and saplings and many of the tombstones [were] leaning or [had] fallen over.” A group of township residents petitioned London Grove Township to take charge and maintain the grounds, and in 1965 a county Judge ordered just that.
The stone foundation of the church remains, but the majority of the burials lack their original headstones that have been destroyed, buried or removed over time. Today the cemetery is kept up by the township and is nominally open to the public.
Sigh. Another place with a burial ground containing Black Civil War soldiers just sort of there. I am glad the Girl Scouts and London Grove Township Historic Commission have an interest. I am curious again as to the remark that London Grove Township has supposedly had this spot since 1965 when a Chester County Judge gave custody to London Grove Township. If London Grove has had control since 1965, why the new public notice court thingy?
Well here’s hoping this post spurs some interest including the desire for some reporter to write about this, right?
History matters. This place matters. I close with photos of the graves I have found.
I have been writing about Melangell Antiques since they opened. They are located at 1133 Pottstown Pike, West Chester, PA 19380 in West Goshen Township.
This business is in an old estate hunting lodge. A rather famous one to local history buffs. Also known as “Wrangley Lodge”, in an amazing century-plus old Arts and Crafts style designed by Charles Barton Keen as part of the original Greystone Estate. This is special to me because one of my very close friends and honorary other mothers is his granddaughter.
And those who know me know I love a good adaptive reuse, and some of my favorite antique stores have been in restored old houses! (You know like another favorite business down in Chadds Ford, Brandywine View Antiques.)
Anyway, I stopped in this past weekend because I knew that the store had some strands of vintage mercury glass garland, which I use on my trees.
Once again, when I walked in the door, I marveled at the sheer beauty of the place. And it’s not just what the business owner sells, it’s the restoration. This place really has been transformed. It’s a beautiful serene space. The building glows inside and out. No not literally, it’s just a feeling you get when you go inside and it’s lovely.
And what I also realized this weekend is they’ve never been honored or commended publicly by West Goshen Township or any of those supervisors there for what they have done. This is an adaptive reuse business that works in a historic asset.
I guess West Goshen doesn’t do historic preservation awards? Do they even celebrate local small businesses or are they only about Target and Chick Fil A? I mean, I like both stores, but they need to celebrate their small businesses too.
I also decided to research the name. Melangell is Welsh and was the name of a Saint. That I already knew, but the rest of the history was fascinating. 
The name Melangell has its origins deeply rooted in Welsh culture and language. In Welsh, mel translates to dear, while angell relates to angel. Combining these elements, the name Melangell signifies DearAngel. This name has a rich and intriguing history, closely tied to the story of Saint Melangell herself.
Saint Melangell was the patron saint of hares and rabbits. She was a Welsh hermit and abbess. She possibly lived in the 7th or 8th century, although the precise dates are uncertain. According to her hagiography, she was originally an Irish princess who fled an arranged marriage and became a consecrated virgin in the wilderness of the Kingdom of Powys.
According to legend, she was known for her devotion to nature and for providing sanctuary to a hunted hare (rabbit) , thus earning her saintly status. As time passed, the name Melangell became associated with this valiant, compassionate figure, and it found its place in Welsh folklore and traditions. The Shrine Church of Pennant Melangell is reported to be one of the most beautiful little churches in the UK.
Anyway, this store is filled with wonderful treasures if you’re looking for a gift or something for your home or something for the holidays. Art, antiques, and fun. The place is just simply beautiful and I think we can all use a little more beauty in our lives and they definitely have Christmas magic.
It was a magical holiday extravaganza at Life’s Patina at Willowbrook Farm and I look forward to the magic at Life’s Patina Merchantile and Cafe in Historic Yellow Springs Village!
I do not know how Meg and her team do it but every year it’s a new magical experience and Meg always sprinkles some of the magic towards a nonprofit charity partner every sale. This is truly a love what’s local 🎄❤️
Life’s Patina at Willowbrook Farm has one more day of their 3 day event which is tomorrow, Sunday November 24th from 10 AM to 4 PM. 1750 N Valley Rd, Malvern, PA.
Life’s Patina Merchantile and Cate is located at 1657 Art School Rd, Chester Springs, PA. AKA the Jenny Lind House. They are open the following winter hours: Wednesday, Thursday & Friday: 8am to 4pm and Saturday & Sunday: 9am to 3pm
I have given up counting the number of blog posts just about the Joseph Price house in Exton. It’s the house at the corner of S. Whitford Rd. and Clover Hill Road. It’s a gorgeous house.
For years many of us have been concerned because there’s nobody living there and we feel that people have been getting in. There’s a new video from Abandoned Steve and I am very grateful to whoever this videographer is because it shows West Whiteland Township the exact state of this historic asset, and this is a federally listed historic property.
I actually know people who have tried to make a deal to buy this house. I also have been told that people on the West Whiteland Historic Commission have been trying to find a preservation buyer haven’t they? But things don’t seem to be as simple as that do they?
Can we just ask the question why is it that the two owners of this property who have never done anything with the house? It seem to be unable to let it go and are just letting it rot? Why why why why?
Anyway, I hope this video will spur people into convincing these owners to sell to a preservation buyer, etc. and I think West Whiteland needs to make sure this property is properly secured.
I’m having a big I told you so moment now. When I had written about this and said that I had a couple of inside photos that somebody had sent me from like a year or two ago, people argued up down and sideways that the house was occupied.
Mine Line Health is trying to slip through a 4 story, 140,000 s.f. giant Urgent Care on the Lloyd Farm In Caln.
They bought 14.5 acres of the 60.
Essentially this is a hospital without rooms or emergency facilities.
They will have 4 surgical suites for those nice things like arm and knees, colonoscopies. legs, etc. This is a hospital for people with insurance. Only God knows what will happen to all the people in Coatesville or have bad or no insurance.
I have an ever more interesting thought on what they are doing. I have to ask if thy came in and lied through “information” meetings? Since they only had to tell people 750 feet from the site, few came.
Now we all know Caln Township is sleazy and I thought they might improve with retired State Senator Andy Dinniman’s former chief of staff Don Vymazal as the new manager (His email is dvymazal@calntownship.org
But alas he apparently has drunk the Kool Aid.
MAIN LINE HEALTH IS SUBMITTING A PLAN TO CHANGE THE PRESENT ZONING FROM RESIDENTIAL R-2 TO COMMERCIAL C-2TO ALLOW THEM TO CONSTRUCT AN URGENT CARE FACILITY
A 140,544 SQUARE FOOT BUILDING – 4 STORIES HIGH (65 FEET) WITH 500 CAR PARKING
THIS IS NOT A HOSPITAL – IT WILL PROVIDE NO EMERGENCY SERVICES
TAXES: Unlike YOU, as a non-profit, they can & will apply for the exemption from County, Twp., and School Taxes. Their employees will pay taxes.
TRAFFIC: 500 MORE CARS on Lloyd & Rt 322 AND a new intersection at Manor Ave & Rock Raymond Road. PATIENTS will be going in and out of the facility all day, including rush hour 8 AM and 6 PM…except traffic is so bad some days aleady it feels like rush hour all of the time.
WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT IT? COME TO THE MEETING AND HAVE YOUR SAY! SPEAK UP, RIGHT NOW BEFORE ANYTHING IS APPROVED. THE PLANNING COMMISSION IS UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO APPROVE THIS ZONING CHANGE. THEY CAN SAY NO IF YOU WANT THEM TO.
PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING MUNICIPAL BUILDING 253 Municipal Drive, Thorndale, PA Tuesday, November 19, 2024 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm
North Wayne Avenue at the Wayne Train Station. A GIANT stuck looks like an 18 wheeler at dinner time. Nice. Can the driver not read? Does he or she not know the height of what they are driving?
Talk about duh.
Who is paying for what? It’s ridiculous and maybe if Commissioner Moira my brother is an actor Mulroney and perpetually cranky and pale Commissioner Jack Larkin can stop hollering at Jake Abel long enough they can look into this? (Yeah commissioners your off camera and on camera antics are noted by quite a few so you can’t blame me can you?)
Also about The Willows. Is it really financially stable? IMHO, I don’t think so. And what exactly does Will Nord do to earn his salary which at the recent Radnor meeting is supposedly $91K+? He’s a pleasant fellow, but still? And they want to hire an events manager? Why doesn’t the caterer have an onsite events manager? And about that caterer? Peachtree? Are they REALLY the best that the Willows can do? Meh. A few years ago I won pop up dinner tickets with them I think somewhere in Radnor, Pomme maybe? Yeah well, still waiting for them to honor that from 2020 and we will leave it at that. I don’t need a free meal, but I did win it in a contest. So now if they offered it? Yeah no thanks, and that made me decide they are a nope on the caterer scale of life.
And what about the remaining asbestos? That remediation is specific and expensive, correct?
The woman discussing the finances was arch and rather defensive so that means kids, that it’s all really not so hot is it?
And the neighbors sound issues are very real and if Radnor and the Willows Park Preserve think the neighbors are going to go away they will not. Look at the issues in the past until it was worked out at Appleford in Lower Merion. Will Nord thinks everyone is having pink fluffy clouds Kumbaya conversations? The Inveraray neighbors are pissed. I wouldn’t mess with that HOA, would you?
And if Peachtree is selling a house party vibe, they are not correctly marketing the property and Peachtree has full exclusive control as a caterer, so sorry not sorry they do indeed have responsibility towards dealing with any issue, including noise, don’t you think? Are they spread too thin with locations at the Willows, Pomme, Portico at Awbry, and Parque at ridley Creek State Park and again I ask if they are making the dough ray me as an exclusive caterer at FOUR venues why can’t THEY pay for the events planner needed? Usually an events planner is hired by the site if there is NO as in ZERO exclusive caterer.
I think the Willows Park Preserve is a hot mess and sinking further. And yeah, asbestos remediation? Check back through paperwork Radnor Township and I think you will find it is definitely not al complete. And what about the cottage? All of the money wasted on that and NO ONE EVER TALKS ABOUT IT AND WHY?
And let’s talk some more how you wanted to use eminent domain against a church?
Damn Radnor Township, you can’t get out of your own way.
Those bastards in Limerick. I have no pretty words for Limerick Township, Montgomery County, PA.
I got the call this morning and half an hour ago this was posted on Facebook:
190 years of history
7 years of battles
4 hours to be erased
Today, the Hood Mansion was torn down. We were able to rescue the date stone and a few interior pieces – the rest will end up in a landfill.
We were given less than 24 hours notice of the permit being filed – this comes after the property was recently sold yet again to another shell corporation based out of the Bronx.
It will be replaced with a data center warehouse – yet to be officially approved. More on that later.
All of us here at EPPS have worked tirelessly since 2017 to save this incredible piece of American history on a shoestring budget. This is a tragic failure in our country to continue to allow pieces of our shared past to be erased for corporate interests that contribute nothing to our sense of place and community. Preservationists aren’t magicians, and it takes many parties working together to try and save what we can. Unfortunately it’s difficult if not impossible to fight the corporate machine.
We can rest easy knowing we gave it our best shot up until the very end, but as a great friend and mentor of mine once said about the field of preservation:
“You’ll lose more than you save”
Thank you to everyone who has supported us in this fight for many years, and a heartfelt apology to the Hood Family, whose contributions to our society clearly didn’t matter enough to the powers that be.
Please stay tuned to our pages for an additional press release.
So hopefully now the data center and environmental activists wake the hell up about what is happening in Limerick. Thus far they have been strangely silent given the environmental impacts.
Congratulations Limerick Township you feckless bunch of nitwits. You have just taken a step closer to making your area like Louden County, Virginia and all it entails. Hope the realtors who brokered these deals choke on the commissions.
I am really sorry Hood Mansion. We all tried. Please tell your spirits to haunt away.
Eight years ago yesterday, my husband and I asked a structural engineer who specializes in historic properties (among other things) to look at the ruin of Ebenezer AME on Bacton Hill Road in Frazer/East Whiteland Township. He reviewed the exterior. It’s not safe to go into the ruin – very unstable.
In 2023 I lamented the state of the ruin and said everything had the engineer told me a few years ago now that I passed along to East Whiteland Township and East Whitehead Historical Commission was sadly happening. The walls have never been shored up, and the development going along around it is taking a toll. Time, weather, and circumstances are not friends to this site.
I also had said then that before COVID hit, there was a lady from the National Trust for Historic Places I had connected with who seemed interested. Her name was Lawana Holland-Moore. I have tried following up since, but nothing, not even a reply. (Sigh.) Who knows? Maybe she will see this post and renew her former interest. There are so many historic places and structures at risk, but I just wish this place would matter for more.
Then last year (September, 2023), East Whiteland erected a local historic marker. It made me hopeful. It was at that ceremony that some members of a local AME Church (Mt. Zion AME in Devon, PA) helping out with saving Ebenezer thanked me for my activism efforts over the years. No one had publicly done so ever at that point. Pastor April Martin and Bertha Jackmon. Coming from them that really meant something special to me.
At the recent October 10th, 2024 East Whiteland Township Board of Supervisors meeting, I was also thanked in absentia by the East Whiteland Historic Commission and the Chair of the Supervisors, Scott Lambert, for my efforts dating back to 2013 or so. These comments occurred in the midst of an update I never thought would happen: funding for stabilizing the ruin of Ebenezer has been found between the township and the AME Church. It sounds like the project will start soon.
I couldn’t zoom or attend the meeting, so it was just today I watched the video of the meeting. I literally started to cry when I heard about stabilization becoming a reality. And I admit to being a little misty eyed over being recognized by my township. I am neither thanked nor recognized positively very often. Usually I am chided and berated and more for daring to blog and have opinions.
Ebenezer is very personal to me. When I first moved to Chester County to be with my husband, I quickly became obsessed with the ruins of Chester County. We drove past Ebenezer often. It was overgrown and tumbling down. I thought it was a farmhouse in decay. Then one day when we were headed towards Elverson to see friends, my husband told me to bring my camera and we would stop for a few minutes.
Stopped we did. I still remember walking through the dead weeds to the rear of what I thought was a farmhouse ruin. Then I saw Joshua. I think I held my breath at first. He was a Civil War soldier. Then I started to look in the weeds around some more, and I realized this was a burial ground. Then it hit me: this must be a church ruin. How could people not care?
That was 2013. And that is when I started looking into what I would eventually learn was Ebenezer AME.
The origins of the AME Church go back to the Free African Society which Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and others established in Philadelphia in 1787. Richard Allen was born a slave in 1760 in Delaware. He was owned and then freed by Benjamin Chew, who was a prominent lawyer and Chief Justice of the Commonwealth from 1774-1777.
Ebenezer was a very early AME church, and Bishop Richard Allen was still alive (he died March 1831) when the Quaker, James Malin, probably decide he would deed the land to the AME Church so Ebenezer could be built (June 1831.) Ebenezer is quite literally perhaps the second oldest AME site in the country, except for Mother Bethel AME in Philadelphia. So you can see given the age of Ebenezer AME in East Whiteland, Chester County, PA that it is truly part of the early days of a church and religion founded in Philadelphia. Bishop Richard Allen died in 1831, just months before Ebenezer came to be after Joseph Malin deeded the land. According to the deed transcript, it was for a church and a burial place. My research indicates the first church was built (or finished) by 1835.
Members of this community have been documented as former slaves. Their ability to construct this church demonstrates the prosperity and commitment of this community.
The trustees of the Ebenezer AME church purchased the land in 1831 from James Malin. The oldest gravestones found in the cemetery date from the early 1830’s. The congregation disbanded for a time between 1848 and 1871 during which time the building fell into disrepair. By June 22, 1873 the church had been rebuilt and rededicated. It continued to be used until 1970…Now it is abandoned.
A stone building, dilapidated and crumbling from the outside in, still stands on Bacton Hill Road….The gravestones which surround the building clearly show that it was a church. Nearly all the headstones have fallen downhill and lie, face up crumbling from the wind and rain.
Records show that this church, formerly named the Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal Church, was built in 1832 on what was originally known as the Yellow Springs Road. A celebrated gospel church, it was regularly attended by Negroes who lived and worked on Bacton Hill. Very few of the lives of these people, who were once a great part of the history of East Whiteland, have ever been chronicled.
Early tax records for Chester County show a listing of “free men”. Actually these “free men” were colored slaves who had been given their freedom from bondage when they reached the age of 38. Later on, the age of freedom was lowered to 23 years of age and finally a state law granted that any person born in the state of Pennsylvania was a guaranteed free man.
The farmers of Valley Hills would often give these free men, after their term of bondage was up, a small plot of land for their own upon the hills in Bacton. On these, the former slaves built small log cabins or stone buildings. Many ran small farms while still working during the day timbering the summit of Bacton Hill and carting lumber down to the Great Valley for the lime kilns.
Think about it: these free and freed men who lived and worked around Bacton Hill built a church, and eventually a stone building was built. In 1989 when the paper was written, 80 graves were documented. When the next Eagle Scout documented graves, I believe he only documented 26. Some of the graves disappeared. Sinking into the murky and often swampy land (several springs are underneath apparently, and there are also interestingly old clay pits somewhere way off to the rear of the graveyard on another property), and it would also sadly not surprise me if other headstones had simply been removed. Yes, people steal from the dead and that includes headstones. That’s why East Whiteland PD has kept an eye on the headstones and grave yard in the past.
Anyway, riots and “disturbances” between 1848 and 1870 caused the church to not be used as much and it apparently fell to ruin the first time. But in 1872 the old church was brought back to life and reopened December 8th, 1872. “Important” clergymen were reported as having been present, and in June of 1873 the church was re-dedicated as Ebenezer African American Methodist Church.
At this point the church remained in use until 1910. Then the church may not have been used again until the 1940s. In the 1940s it was reported to have been some sort of a big thing at the church to celebrate it’s history. It was said people from all over Chester County gathered with “prominent” members of the A.M.E. Church. It is believed that is when the church was electrified. After the church stopped being used, and the woods and swampy marsh grass grew up around it, and a mobile home ended up next to it.
Some of the family names on the gravestones are the same as families still living in Malvern Boroughand in Chester County!
For the past many years at this point, I have been writing about this. I see the importance of this site intertwined with its 184 years of individual history combined with the 200+-year-old history of the AME Church founded by freed slave Richard Allen. (The AME Church as all know celebrated its 200th anniversary this year in Philadelphia.)
The parcel’s 1832 deed of trust transfers ownership of the land from James Malin, a prominent Quaker farmer involved in the Underground Railroad, to three African Americans – “Samuel Davis, Ishmael Ells, and Charles Kimbul” – for the purpose of constructing a church with a burial ground in East Whiteland.
Ebenezer’s floor was a raised platform on stone piers, according to research by archival consultant Jonathan L. Hoppe, for the Chester County Historical Society. Its single room had a door facing the road; opposite was the raised pulpit. The interior walls were covered in wainscoting.
I first photographed Ebenezer in 2013. Then a few more times after that times including in June 2016 when the Inquirer article was in process. Then a second time, October 1, 2016. i placed the Philadelphia Inquirer articles. They are among my favorite articles and Kristin Holmes did an amazing job.
Inquirer reporter Kristin Holmes with former Chair of the East Whiteland Historic Commission and neighbor, Tim Caban. Tim was instrumental in the early days of my ruin obsession. And he has always remained a sounding board and wealth of knowledge.
And we have to speak about Hiram. Hiram Woodyard was a Township resident and former slave who served in the Union Army as a teamster. He was a leader in the African American community and is buried at the Ebenezer AME Church. His home still stands on Congestoga Road. Other homes he built still stand. He was an inhabitant of Bacton Hill.
And we have to talk about friends I made along the way who died before they could see Ebenezer get this far. The late poet A.V. (Ann) Christie and Al Terrell.
Ann I met shortly after I started my vision quest on Ebenezer. She had been battling breast cancer but showed up at my door one day with a boy scout report and the Conestoga Turnpike book written by my friend author, artist, and historian Catherine Quillman who is a true Chester County treasure who shares her knowledge so freely and with an open heart. It is because of Catherine I was able to prove my suspicion that although the property had been abandoned, it really wasn’t and the AME Church and more specifically probably Mother Bethel still owned it.
Ann died in April, 2016. She was so wonderful a human. I actually do have some of her poetry in my personal library. In her obituary story in the Philadelphia Inquirer, John Timpane wrote:
Poet and friend Leonard Gontarek offered a poetic remembrance of Ms. Christie by e-mail: “Like the poet herself, A.V. Christie’s poetry is precise, elegant and generous. In her poems she gives us a model of the universe: If we possess integrity and trust the world, truth will come through. If we know the world deeply enough, we will see the logic of happiness and sorrow. If we listen carefully, we will hear the music coaxed from the dusk and fallen magnolia flowers, the pond, the clouds, and her beloved robins. It will be the music we hear as knowledge becomes wisdom.”
This is a poetry of grace and holy light.
Ann loved Ebenezer, and had at one point lived quite nearby. She grew frustrated with trying to engage people about Ebenezer. She was responsible for organizing and often paying for a few clean ups.
Then I met Al Terrell. He also lived nearby. We became friends after bonding over the same black Civil War Soldiers. He visited Joshua and Hiram too. When and said he was going to get Boy Scouts and volunteers in there to clean up AND would get the AME Church to say OK, I was so glad to hear it, but didn’t hold out much hope. The Boy Scouts were from the Willistown Troop. And there were others. Bible study folks from Al’s bible study and Lee’s Lawn Service. And more. And this was just the beginning. Al threw himself into this the last couple of years of his life. He helped get the Veteran’s Day ceremony November 19th, 2016.
November 19, 2016 is when we held the Veteran’s Day Ceremony at Ebenezer to honor the black Civil War Soldiers there and others. It made front page news of The Daily Local. That was such an emotional day for me at that site, I cried. And I have no ancestors buried there, just my black Civil War Soldier Joshua Johnson whom I discovered one day many, many years ago in a pile of weeds that I thought were surrounding an abandoned farmhouse.
EAST WHITELAND >> During a humble autumn afternoon, a small ceremony paid homage to a long since abandoned graveyard housing African-American Civil War veterans, and others whose names have been lost to time and erosion.
For Bruce Reason and Al Terrell, the sight of the cleaned up Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal Church cemetery on Saturday was a welcome one.
Reason, 56, of East Whiteland pointed to one of the legible headstones bearing the name of one African-American Civil War veteran, Joshua Johnson, 1846-1916, and said he was related.
“It feels great,” he said about the site of the cleaned up cemetery. “I waited years for someone to come along (and clean up the graveyard).”
The person who came along and led the clean-up effort was Henderson High School sophomore Luke Phayre.
Phayre, a member of the Willistown Boy Scout Troop 78, had been looking for a project to complete so he could become an Eagle Scout….And Terrell, himself a former assistant scoutmaster working on rejoining the troop, suggested to Phayre that he clean up the graveyard as his own son, Andrew did almost two decades earlier.
“I thought it was a great thing to do, to honor the soldiers buried here,” Phayre said. “You couldn’t even see this (gravesite) from the street.”
The gravesite and the ruins of the old church sit alongside North Bacton Hill Road, near where the road intersects with Route 401.
Starting in August, Phayre and other volunteers worked to figure out who technically owns the abandoned property, get permission from the owners, and to clean up the graveyard and crumbling stone church laden with overgrown nature.
His efforts were recognized Wednesday when at 1 p.m., a ceremony led by the commander of the West Chester American Legion Post 134, retired Air Force Capt. Howard Crawford.
The ceremony also served as a way to honor the dead. It included a color guard presentation, gun salute, and memorial prayer.
Members of several different organizations, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Marine Corps League participated in the ceremony. Three East Whiteland police officers were also present.
On that day I do not recall any members of the then East Whiteland Historic Commission or township supervisors, but I will always remember the members of East Whiteland Police Department who showed up to be part of the honor guard and keep the traffic in check…on their own time.
Then things slowed down, and Al Terrell died. I knew that November of 2016 that he knew something was not right with his health but he didn’t speak about it. And then shortly after Christmas that year, Al contacted me and said he wanted me to promise not to ever give up on Ebenezer. He was insistent, and that was not his way. Then one day in January, 2017 when I was sitting in my living room talking with my friend Tom Casey, my phone rang. It was Kimberly Boddy, a wonderful woman I have since lost touch with, but who at the time had helped with research because of other research she was doing.
And Kimberly has a really cool Chester County heritage as she is the granddaughter of the late Lee Carter, who was a self-taught Chester County artist who also had what I think was called the Road To Freedom Museum at one time. The Daily Local wrote about an exhibit of Lee Carter’s paintings in Coatesville in 2015.
I still remember sitting in my living room and saying to Tom, “I can’t believe it. Al can’t be gone.”
Al and I had been talking about trying to get someone with special radar equipment into the graveyard to properly map the graves once and for all those last times we spoke. Ground Penetrating Radar.
I still miss Al. And Ann.
Al in November, 2016 saluting our soldier, Joshua.
Things kind of slowed for a while until new blood and energy on the historic commission reinvigorated them as well as real interest from the supervisors in East Whiteland. Now I will freely admit it has been touch and go with the East Whiteland Historic Commission and me for years. Some people like me, some merely tolerate me, and a couple I have felt quite clearly dislike what they perceive as my interference on their patch so to speak. Then Pastor April Martin and AME historian Bertha Jackmon also had more time for Ebenezer, and now here we are. A historic marker and money for the ruin stabilization. This is a God is Good thing. I spent a lot of years feeling quite despondent about this site, until things started to happen.
I will note that to date I have never ever had a reply to any of the many emails (and some phone calls) sent over time to Philadelphia Mother Bethel’s Mark Kelly Tyler. Shame on him because before Mother Bethel, as one of his callings was Bethel AME in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He has talked a good game in interviews with the Inquirer, etc., but he has apparently never thought humble Ebenezer AME at 97 Bacton Hill Road in Frazer was important enough in spite of the inextricable and irrefutable links to Mother Bethel? Pity. But hey, he’s got his plum now as a newly elected officer of some importance in the AME Church as per the Inquirer this August and allow me to quote with some feeling of irony:
The Rev. Mark Kelly Tyler, pastor of Mother Bethel AME Church in Society Hill, was elected as an officer of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC) at its General Conference this week in Columbus, Ohio.
He was elected to become one of nine general officers: executive director of the Department of Research and Scholarship and historiographer of the AME Church, which has its headquarters in Nashville.
The election took place on Monday. The Tennessee Tribune posted the results, noting that six new bishops and nine general officers were elected. (There are at least 20 bishops in charge of geographical districts.)
“As I step into the role of historiographer / executive director of the Department of Research & Scholarship of the global AME Church, I find this moment to be bittersweet,” Tyler wrote in a text from Ohio Wednesday afternoon….In an interview earlier this month, Tyler said the new position would require him to resign as pastor at Mother Bethel AME, at 419 S. Sixth St., where he was appointed the church’s 52nd pastor in 2008.
He said he would remain at Mother Bethel for at least two to three months until a new pastor is appointed by the church leadership.
In his new role, he will have two offices, one in Philadelphia and one in Nashville…Tyler said he has always loved history, and he hopes to create a major documentary film about the church, possibly with PBS.
Gosh Rev. Tyler, history? Imagine that. So, a reminder that some of the earliest history of your church is here in East Whiteland Township at 97 Bacton Hill Road in Frazer, as well as elsewhere in Chester County. Maybe now you will have time for those emails? Return phone calls? Sadly I have my doubts, but hey, that’s on you. (And yes I am being deliberately pissy and unapologetically so.)
So I was sent these photos. Obviously I didn’t take them I don’t live down there, and this is Chadds Ford. This is the Air BnB that is the subject of consternation with neighbors located at 1465 Smithbridge Road. And the date showing that the photo I guess was taken is 2024, so is this house still active as an Air BnB? I mean what happens? Does the township building close up shop on the weekend and then people rent this house? And yes, I can ask that question. After all April 19, 2024 was a Friday and that looks like evening, right?
Again, this phone had a date of April 19, 2024. In this photo, you can see lights on in one of the buildings which meant it was towards dusk, correct? I just am interested to know if this is after the cease-and-desist letter of like a year earlier, how was it still looking like a short term rental?
And then this is the same property that’s supposedly scheduled at the end of this current month (if the Zoning hearing occurs) that now wants to be a Bed and Breakfast Inn?
Now for the record, I don’t object to bed and breakfasts. I think they are a good adaptive reuse for often otherwise quasi-obsolete historic homes. I also like bed-and-breakfasts, because I think they have more character and charm than hotels a lot of the time. But if this property has a conservation easement with the Brandywine Conservancy how would this work? Can you just stop having a conservation easement or is that forever?
I actually think if this property had just been a long-term rental with like a normal family in it, or had been introduced from jump as a bed-and-breakfast with on-site ownership running it, you wouldn’t be here with this house on this property, but that’s not how it has played out is it? But again, where is the Brandywine Conservancy on this? Can properties like this with easements that have language about no commercial things going on ever have a use like this?
Look at all the photos of all those cars. How would you feel if you were a neighbor? Would you trust these property owners going forward? Did these property owners ever try to really interact with the full-time neighbors and work things out with them? And by really interact I mean, did the actual property owners sit down with neighbors ever do that or just their representatives? That makes a difference.
In Radnor Township, in Wayne, there used to be the Wayne Bed and Breakfast Inn. It was gorgeous. It has since been torn down for hideous development, which is criminal. But the original owners of the Inn, not the people who subsequently sold to a developer, went out of their way to be good neighbors. And I remember when they were initially trying to get approval for what they wanted to do and it was a tough row to hoe. I know because I followed the meetings.
Above are just a couple of the articles that were written about the now, but a memory Wayne Bed and Breakfast Inn. They have a date of 2021 on them but it’s not actually 2021 that’s just when the website was updated and they reloaded those articles. The Inn actually opened around 2012.
And I know someone else who owns a bed-and-breakfast inn. There is no delegating to random people, they live on site. They take their stewardship of their historic property quite seriously. and it’s beautiful. But part of being an innkeeper I think is how you get on with your neighbors and if you started as an Air BnB that had lots of party weekends can’t you just understand why neighbors are not trusting? And I still can’t seem to find the answer that Chadds Ford Township knew this was an Air BnB before neighbors told them it was an Air BnB can you? I can’t find it in the Inquirer article, I couldn’t find it in like meeting minutes for Chadds Ford, so did they know or they didn’t know until neighbors said something?
Anyway, it’s obvious that communities including Chadds Ford need to look at their zoning and have conversations about short term rentals and whether or not they want bed-and-breakfasts in certain areas but not in others, or what the criteria is etc. it’s also apparent that it would be helpful if the Municipalities Planning Code was also updated for more fleshing out of these uses state-wide.
I will close with screenshots from when this Chadds Ford place was on Air BnB. The dates on the screenshots indicate 2023. Below that, my noodling around about Air BnBs in general based on what’s listed.
Here’s hoping a resolution to this thorny issue can be achieved. Just like the property owners have rights so do the neighbors. And Chadds Ford needs to hear all, equally. And I really hope the Brandywine Conservancy can clear up how they feel about this situation, don’t you? The Brandywine Conservancy does amazing things, but they can’t continue to play possum with this issue in my humble opinion.
