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.)
Oakwell. 1735 County Line Road, Villanova, PA. Originally part of Stoneleigh…..
I wrote briefly about Oakwell at the beginning of this year. I wasn’t going to care. I don’t live in Lower Merion any longer, so why should I care? Then a friend sent me photos. She had gone on an impromptu tour of the grounds, and met Dr. Bennett who is the man who first was selling to Villanova, then Lower Merion School District had it’s greedy paws out.
But then down the rabbit hole I went because a friend was there this weekend and sent me photos.
It started with the tea house. Such a folly. I had seen photos of them in Victorian estates. And then I saw the life size terra cotta warrior. A Chinese warrior. I find the Chinese terra cotta warriors fascinating. I have a small replica of one. (Check out the Smithsonian article HERE on them.) I have only seen life size ones in this area one other time: a few years ago for sale at Resellers Consignment Gallery in Frazer.
Then I read some fun history the Save Oakwell folks have dug up:
1921 Olmsted Brothers map of Stoneleigh property that become Oakwell in 1922: Greenhouse Complex, Superintendent’s Cottage, Squirrel Inn dormitory for women in the gardening and horticultural training program. White oak indicated in red box. Source NPS Olmsted Archives, Job #3577
In 1919, William Bodine was making preparations to build his new house on a portion of his father’s Stoneleigh estate, a property that came to be known as Oakwell in 1922. The famed Olmsted Brothers firm had been Stoneleigh’s landscape architects since 1908, and there are hundreds of pages of their records for both properties accessible in the Library of Congress and the National Park System’s Olmsted Archives showing the level of expertise and thought that went into the stewardship of this place through the 1950s.
What was Olmsted Brothers’ main concern when it came to placement of the new house and driveway along County Line Road? Almost 103 years ago to this day, this telegram to their client William Bodine, along with other correspondence, shows that their main concern was situating these structures in order to “save trees.”
~ Erin Vintinner Betley “Save Oakwell” Facebook Group
Friday May 23, 1919 was a busy day for Stoneleigh’s Eleanor Gray Warden Bodine.
Bryn Mawr College was hosting the 5th Annual Conference of the Woman’s National Farm and Garden Association. As an association member, Mrs. Bodine listened to talks on topics ranging from War Gardens to Community Gardens to the Woman’s Land Army.
Two years later, an article in House & Garden titled “Consider the Gardener” again shone a public spotlight on this program for training of young women, “offered by Mrs. Samuel T. Bodine of Villa Nova, Pa whose extensive estate and eminent superintendent-gardener, Mr. Alexander MacLeod, have formed an exceptional combination.”
After the program, the conference attendees toured 4 nearby farms & gardens, with Stoneleigh the last stop of the day. Eleanor Bodine would have welcomed attendees to view Stoneleigh’s magnificent gardens at the front of the property but given the interests of the membership, the back of the property likely would have been center stage. For this is where Mrs. Bodine and her superintendent Alexander MacLeod hosted an innovative gardening and horticultural training program for women, centered on a greenhouse complex and Superintendent’s Cottage designed by noted architect Frank Miles Day sometime before 1903 (both structures became part of her son William Bodine’s Oakwell after 1922). The women in the program lived in a dormitory they named “Squirrel Inn,” built specifically for them by the Bodine family, near the sprawling fruit and vegetable gardens where they spent their days (these were Victory gardens during WWI).
The article focused on the need to foster the interest of more young people in gardening and horticulture, with these lines that resonate 101 years later: “nature study classes and school gardens are awakening special powers of observation and emphasizing the practical value of patience and diligent perseverance…. public and private enterprise must combine to throw searchlights on the path to be chosen, revealing the mysteries of science related to horticulture [because] even soil… teems with history, science, poetry and religion.”
~ Erin Vintinner Betley “Save Oakwell” Facebook Group
So Oakwell. Was (again) literally once part of Stoneleigh. Stoneleigh as in the house was built in 1877 by Edmund Smith, a Pennsylvania Railroad executive. Pennsylvania Railroad money built a lot of the Main Line of a certain period, didn’t it? When the Bodines acquired the estate, in the early part of the 20th century, what is now Oakwell and Oakwell land was gifted to William Bodine. William Bodine’s house “Oakwell” was built in 1922. In 1932, it was subdivided off of Stoneleigh.
So Stoneleigh survived, was donated by the Haas family to Natural Lands, yet Oakwell, which is a place that should be part of a similar preservation and conservation conversation is at risk. It is fascinating that there has not been more noise about this. Maybe people are just tired of Lower Merion School District taking properties or causing reassessments and increases in taxes. The Lower Merion School District is a greedy behemoth and I don’t think those in the administration have ever cared about other that what can be gotten in the name of the school district.
Ok yes, a lot of this is memories of days gone by, but properties like Oakwell? Legendary. Why shouldn’t a place like Oakwell live on with an adaptive reuse? The gardens although a wreck, are all still there! The tree are amazing. There is literally a small oak forest. And all of this is supposed to be flattened for TURF fields? For MIDDLE SCHOOLERS, no less? Is this an actual need, or a want?
Hidden City Philadelphia wrote an amazing article a couple of days ago. The talk about Oakwell being a historical resource. I will remind people this is Lower Merion Township and I watched Addison Mizner’s La Ronda get demolished. Being a historic asset may buy some time, but we live in a private property rights state, so it can sadly only delay the inevitable. And Lower Merion needs to pay more mind to demolition by neglect, in my humble opinion.
Here is an excerpt:
….The Oakwell estate’s current resident, Dr. John Bennett, founder and CEO of Devon Medical Products, has lived there for 25 years. He intended to sell the sprawling estate to Villanova University to be used as a retreat. However, in December 2018 the school district elbowed out Villanova and voted in favor of condemning Bennett’s property.
This is not how the school district sees it. “After a long search, the school district paid more than $12.9 million for the contiguous properties, which had both been offered for sale by their owners, for use as playing fields for Black Rock Middle School,” said Amy Buckman, director of school and community relations for Lower Merion School District.
Bennett disagrees. “I had the property under agreement with Villanova and, just prior to closing, the school district took it by eminent domain,” he said. “I didn’t want to see it go to baseball fields, destroying the ecological setting we have here. I went to court to fight them and lost. It’s a travesty.” The school district paid Bennett $9.95 million for the property.
“I offered to remain on the property to care for the house, but they want me gone so they can claim that it is abandoned, allow it to deteriorate, and tear it down.” Bennett has kept the entirety of the estate well maintained and still lives there with his daughter and grandchild.
The day that LMSD condemned 1835 County Line Road allowing it to be taken by Eminent Domain, the property was effectively titled to the LMSD. The only option available to the owners to get their property back is to fight a legal battle in court.
Lower Merion Township, PA — Fraud, collusion, and bad faith are alleged in court documents filed on February 7, 2018, by attorney Michael F. Faherty on behalf of his clients, township residents John A. Bennett, M.D. and Nance Di Rocco who are in a legal battle over the taking of their property by the Lower Merion School District.
How was Stoneleigh able to block the school district, while the historic landscaping, Acorn Cottage, and horticultural structures of the Oakwell estate, originally part of Stoneleigh, at risk? “When the historic resource inventory survey was conducted in the late 1990s, the greenhouse buildings were overlooked. However, this parcel is historically associated with the Stoneleigh estate and warrants similar protections,” said Kathleen Abplanalp. director of historic preservation at the Lower Merion Conservancy.
“From the very beginning, the entire 13-acre property has fit into our mission goals for historic preservation, open space preservation, the health of the local watershed, and sustainability,” Abplanalp said. “We are vehemently opposed to the current plan and hope the school district will compromise some of their programmatic needs.”
Erin Betley, a conservation biologist who lives in Lower Merion, views the pending destruction of the estate’s landscaping and historically significant structures like the greenhouse complex as lost opportunity. “Oakwell’s intact landscape provides a hands-on educational opportunity for our children, and our community, to learn about ecology, conservation, environmental science, gardening, sustainability, history, natural history, historical preservation, and more,” she said. “Historical records reveal that Stoneleigh’s greenhouse complex and fruit and vegetable gardens were educational spaces for young women during and after WWI, where they gained practical training in gardening while also feeding the community. I hope this can be viewed as a chance for this valuable place to come full circle and used in a way that takes inspiration from our collective past to inform our collective future”…A single mature oak tree can consume more than 40,000 gallons of water a year. Where will all that water go when the Oakwell estate’s trees are gone?
Doug Tallamy, a conservationist, author, and professor of agriculture and entomology at the University of Delaware, agrees. “If you replace a forest with a lawn, you are generating run off,” he said. Tallamy was involved with preserving Stoneleigh. His message to the school district? “Find another place without cutting down hundreds of trees.”
I am a huge fan of Doug Tallamy, own his books, have heard him lecture a few times now. I also live with a woods full of oak trees. I love them. I am attached to my woods and the creatures and plants in them, much like the folks who live around Oakwell.
This property would be better suited as a retreat, which is I think what I heard Villanova wanted to do with the property.
And not to skip around but is all of this crap being done by Lower Merion School District going to cost Lower Merion Township big time when it comes to public works, police, fire, EMTs? So when will they have to put in another firehouse and where exactly?
Here are some links which I saw on Save Oakwell which some of you might find of interest:
What do I think? I am not sure as on one hand, this is such a complex tale that I do not know if we will ever know the whole story. BUT on the other hand I am so tired of major properties being demolished and I am definitely of the school of thought that Lower Merion School District need to be stopped. After all, #thisplacematters and has anyone gone to the National Trust for Historic Preservation yet?
And let’s talk about the trees. 500 as in FIVE HUNDRED. Yes, that is the destruction number. That makes me want to throw up.
Isn’t it time to curb the rabid dog of destruction that is Lower Merion School District? From the historic preservation aspects to land and environmental preservation aspects, sadly Oakwell has it all going on. Yet people are being too damn quiet about this. Natural Lands needs to speak up. Hell, they know what it is to have to fight Lower Merion School District over eminent domain and also, the eco system that is their Stoneleigh will be threatened and altered and affected irrevocably if the mass destruction of Oakwell succeeds. Natural Lands speaking up now is very important, and I don’t quite get their silence, do you?
Oakwell need a reprieve. But more people need to care. Not enough people seem to care or are willing to stick their necks out. I really wish that someone would sit down at Oakwell with people who had lived there, or whose family has lived there and film an oral history. Well that should have happened before I think. And where are elected officials on this? Not just statements of Lower Merion Commissioner, but State Reps, State Senators, Congressional representatives, etc? County Commissioners? State environmentalists?
Where. Is. The. Really. LOUD. Public. Outcry?? And more media or do they only cover bad politicians and crime in Philadelphia?
People. We need to save the region’s history. That includes gardens too. Trees. Houses. Tea Houses. I don’t have the answers. God I wish I did. But if we allow this to happen, in the end we will all be sorry. And I have to ask, is Radnor Township asleep here? Their township is quite literally across County Line Road. Radnor residents will be affected too. One would think the Radnor CONservancy might feign an interest, but that would mean getting out of their bubble, right?
Oakwell needs some big hitter angels, do any exist for this property? Why is it in other areas of the country, properties like this are revered and preserved?
Now is a time for us to come together as we have so many times before, but with a new sense of urgency and inclusion, and in ways that will last beyond the coronavirus crisis. As important visual and cultural clues, the places we preserve hold promise for the future we seek to reclaim, and each site stands as an historical indicator of our complex present. We need old buildings as much as old buildings need us. They prompt us to remember who we are.
The COVID-19 virus has devastated many across the country, but due to disinvestment and systemic policies, African Americans and communities of color have been disproportionately affected. Our nation is again reminded that this disparity mirrors and reflects historical and racial inequities. We are being reminded to face the truth about our past.
As a movement, preservation has also mirrored traditional social values. Yet, if we lean into hope and take time to self-reflect, we can be the change we seek. We can draw lessons from the past to create a prosperous future, while also reflecting on the promise of preservation as an equity-driven movement. In our individual moments of stillness, we should ask ourselves: Can we confront the economic challenges of COVID-19 and ignite a contemporary preservation movement as a force for positive social change? How can we weave a tapestry of places and stories to tell our full, shared history? Can we challenge ourselves to realize equity-driven outcomes that benefit all Americans? Because when we collaborate, we have the capacity to create a national identity that reflects the country’s true diversity.
In the spirit of envisioning a more prosperous and inclusive future, I invite you to join me for a special Virtual Preservation Month event with Ms. Phylicia Rashad, co-chair of the National Trust’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund on Friday, May 22, at 1:30 p.m. ET. (Register in advance for the webinar.) In our conversation, we will discuss the power of preservation, the work of the Action Fund, and the historic African American places that inspire all Americans to build a better world.
Our forebearers responded to earlier preservation threats and injustices with dogged leadership, tenacious thinking, and community organizing. From the foundational work of Ann Pamela Cunningham and the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, to the groundbreaking activism of Mary B. Talbert and the National Association of Colored Women, our ancestors ignited our movement by honoring the cultural memories of George Washington and Frederick Douglass. Just like these trailblazing women, we have the fortitude to walk in their footsteps and prove that by cooperative agreement we can measure up. As social critic and author James Baldwin said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
The African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund will continue to examine and eliminate inequities through new forms of partnership, interpretation, and funding. Our leadership is about pursuing an idea, something yet to be seen, and a culture of learning to increase our relevancy and impact. We promote preservation as economic and social justice. We partner with humility in service of African Americans whose overlooked stories and contributions provide strength and examples of overcoming impossible-seeming odds. We draw inspiration and resilience from African American historic places.
Historic sites that bring forward a diverse and inclusive national narrative are playing a crucial role in redefining our collective history and, meaningfully, expanding the preservation movement in equitable ways. These cultural assets help us all walk toward a new era of justice. May our nation face its past to create a more just American culture with preservationists on the front lines protecting and preserving our diverse historic places and communities.
Be well and thrive.
Brent Leggs Executive Director African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund
I immediately thought of Ebenezer sitting all forgotten and forlorn on Bacton Hill Road in Frazer, and it annoyed me. So I sent the guy who wrote this email a note:
You know what irritates me about this email? It is that I have been trying to contact people in preservation for years about the ruins of one of the oldest AME cemeteries in the country, in the history of the country, is in the township in which I live. Ebenezer on Bacton Hill Rd in East Whiteland Chester County PA.
Every time I contact anyone that has to do with African-American history or the AME church I get crickets. 1832 is the deed date. The land was donated by a quaker named Malin. It used to sit amongst one of the oldest free black communities in Chester County. Development and everything else is making it all disappear and there are Civil War soldiers black Civil War soldiers buried in the cemetery. You can Google it. My blog will come up with all the coverage that I have done and things I have tried to do to save it over the years.
Richard Allen was not dead yet when this church was planned But not built. He died in 1831. From my research I think originally it was planned so there would be a burial ground for mother Bethel outside the city. And it’s either the AME Church or mother Bethel which holds the deed to this and like many other historic AME church is it rots.
Thank you for emailing. It’s regrettable that you are irritated by my message of hope. I also regret that you’ve had difficulty securing support for the preservation of this historic AME cemetery. I have copied my colleague Lawana Holland-Moore who you should speak with about this site.
Best wishes to you,
Brent
BRENT LEGGS | EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURAL HERITAGE ACTION FUND P 202.588.6185
NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION The Watergate Office Building
2600 Virginia Avenue NW Suite 1100 Washington, DC 20037
I get irritated because you know as well as I do, that in preservation, especially in places like PA where it doesn’t seem to matter much, hope can be quite selective. I fell in love with this cemetery when I discovered the Civil War Soldiers and freed slave(s) who built some houses that STILL stand on nearby 401 (Conestoga Rd). I also have spent years being told my skin was the wrong color to care about this place which is enough to make me cry. Every time we have gotten people to clear out the weeds, the place is happy. I can’t explain it. You feel welcomed there. I also had a structural engineer look at the ruin a few years ago. It could be cleaned out (by hand) and capped but the AME church has never seen fit to do much of anything. I have done some informal tracking and this is the case with a great deal of their sites. The walls are bowing on the ruin so time is of the essence. There is also development going up around it so I fear for it.
So dear readers, we are home with more time than we want still on our hands. Can YOU send these folks an email asking them to save the ruins and cemetery of Ebenezer on Bacton Hill Road in Frazer, Chester County, PA? After all #ThisPlaceMatters
Yes again, I am writing about the Joseph Price house in West Whiteland Township. It’s really starting to deteriorate badly in my opinion. (And I say that from observing it across the street today- I have not been invited to be on the property so I would not presume.)
This house is historically listed. It was built in 1878 and altered in 1894 by the house namesake inhabitant at the time. It was altered from a Gothic style to a Queen Anne style.
I was also told in the 1990s it was separate apartments inside and there were also cottages around it which were rented out as well.
In the 1950s and 60s there was a large barn there that was a sale barn for cattle run by Bayard Taylor —a blog reader told me that. He knew because his mother did bookkeeping for that business while she was in college.
This house is not completely deserted I am told there is still a caretaker who still lives there. However, this house has an uncertain future at best and nobody seems to know what will happen to it. Which is a shame because it’s very cool.
There are so many amazing houses like this throughout Chester County from all eras of time.
I am told the house is owned by two people in Ambler. Chesco Views confirmed that today.
This afternoon I had some time so I pulled into the business parking lot across the road on Clover Mill Road. I took some photos from across the road and I just looked at the house. It has been historically listed since the 1980s. And yes I know I’m being repetitive, but it just blows my mind that these gorgeous houses that are historically listed not just locally but nationally rot like this.
Things are just crumbling and the property also seems to be quite the haven for dead car bodies.
Truly (and sadly), the house is becoming so decrepit, more decrepit. I really wish these owners would sell to somebody who could restore it.
It is just so crazy to me, as this could be the most fabulous property. It’s big enough and there is enough land left that it could be a great restaurant or even a boutique bed-and-breakfast which is not a stretch considering there is one up the road from it on South Whitford – the Duling-Kurtz House and Country Inn.
Anyway, I continue to be obsessed by this property which is not for sale. It’s just that this is a historically listed property (since 9/6/1984) and is this demolition by neglect? I really hope someone will save this place.
The Jenny Lind House, former home of Yellow Springs Inn looking forlorn May, 2018
A few years ago I remarked on what I thought would be the demise of the Yellow Springs Inn. It resulted in a flurry of breast beating (which can still be found on their old/existing website.)
I was off by a couple/few years but above is the Jenny Lind House as of this week. I went out to the Yellow Springs Art Show (truly amazing this year by the way, and runs through May 13th), and was honestly sad to see the sad down trodden Jenny Lind House. It was a far cry from this photo I took a few short years ago:
What happened? I guess the restaurant left given the deed/document thing I found on Chester County’s real estate site (2017 Deed Transfer).
But that is not ALL happening there. Whomever owns it now seems to have had a stop work order issued on them. I kid you not:
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Sorry, not the best photos. A lot of sun glare when photos were taken. So who is REO Acquisitions, LLC and what are they up to? The letter sent out by West Pikeland in April was sent to these REO Acquisitions c/o FCI Lender Services of Anaheim, CA.
So what the heck were they doing to Jenny Lind house???
Now according to Historic Yellow Springs “Mrs. Holman, the retiring owner of the Yellow Springs Spa property, built the Jenny Lind House in the early 1840’s as a boarding house – it has eight bedrooms!”
Historic Yellow Springs Inc., is on the National Register of Historic Places. They can’t just do anything random to the Jenny Lind House! And this place deserves preservation!!
So here are a bunch of my photos from Jenny Lind’s Yellow Springs Inn days:
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Here are some sad photos taken this week:
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So look, anyone interested in giving the old gal some help? I have absolutely NO idea who these REO Acquisitions people are mentioned in the legal letter plastered to the door. But my guess is whomever they are, they are across the country and this is just some thing they own the paper on, right? So my guess is West Pikeland Township and Historic Yellow Springs and the residents of the village would love to see this building in use. I know I would. It is a lovely restaurant space, so it could be once again. Or a cafe. Or a cafe and Air B and B (it still has a slew of bedrooms, right??)
Now it can be done because the house next door was quite derelict until the Halys bought it, and now it is a totally charming rental house for vacations, etc (Wm Haly House see VRBO). This is how Haly house looked in 2012 or 2013 when I took this photo (before they purchased the property):
Compare with this CURRENT photo courtesy of W.M. Haly House Facebook page:
So how about that??? It IS possible!! W.M. Haly House is proof positive that people do want to restore historic homes! It’s awesome!
So how about it Chester County? Know anyone who would be perfect for the Jenny Lind House? Wouldn’t it be great to have a little cafe of something with Air B and B above? Or a complete renovation into a Bed and Breakfast Inn complete with dining that would hearken back to the days of when it was a boarding house?
The history of Yellow Springs Village spans nearly 300 years. The Native Lenape first attributed the name, “Yellow Springs” because of the natural mineral springs that flow through the area into Pickering Creek.
In the 18th century, Yellow Springs was a fashionable spa village that attracted visitors who sought healing waters and social interaction. During the American Revolution, George Washington commissioned a hospital to be built in the village, the first military hospital in the nation’s history. Washington himself visited on numerous occasions.
Following the war, the village returned to a spa town during the early 19th century.
From 1868 to 1912, Yellow Springs was home to the Chester Springs Soldiers’ Orphans School for children of Civil War Soldiers. From 1916 to 1952, the village served as the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Country School.
From 1952 until 1974 the village was the headquarters of Good News Productions, a film studio in Yellow Springs that created over 400 films including the sci-fi original The Blob. From 1974 on, Historic Yellow Springs, Inc. has preserved many of these original structures and educates visitors about our unique past.
If you are interested in Jenny Lind House, I would say a safe place to start your inquiries would be West Pikeland Township. Their phone number is (610) 590-5300.
I know, I must be pretty boring since I am stuck on this old mansion. But I can’t help it. i love Loch Aerie. Or Glen Loch. Or Lockwood Mansion depending on what you know her as.
I went through today with a writer I know and a writer and historian. We explored Loch Aerie again, listening to tales people had to tell. There were people there today who had been in the house over the years.
Among the first people I spoke with was a gentleman whose brother was the motorcycle gang member who was shot on the front porch. Apparently the brother had rented Loch Aerie along with a woman described as a “Campbell Soup Heiress”. The woman’s last name wasn’t Dorrance, however. And no, I can’t remember what her name was. IN fact I found out she wasn’t an heiress per se but her father was an Executive VP of Campbell Soup.
I saw the marks in the floor today a motorcycle had left.
Then there was the very much older lady who counted all the little steps up to the top of the cupola. I spent some time up in the cupola today myself. The views are amazing.
There were people who had lived or grown up near by, people who were just curious and a lot of people interested in the property looking Loch Aerie over. Truthfully the house was packed the entire time.
I smiled quite a few times because I overheard people saying they had come to see Loch Aerie because they had seen it on this blog.
April 21st is the auction. I hope the right buyer finds her in time. This really is a truly remarkable piece of American Architecture. Today I noticed details I did not notice last week.
And for all of those people who say “but it is next to the Home Depot” when you are inside, you forget. Everything else just melts away and there you are in this spectacular mansion of a bygone era. And I was pleased to learn from a volunteer from the Chester County Historical Society that there are a bunch of photos at the Historical Society of Loch Aerie when the Lockwood Family lived there. I am thinking a field trip might be in order.
So last week in the midst of a brilliant thunderstorm, off I went to photograph and tour the restoration of the Fox Chase Inn and barn on Swedesford Road in West Whiteland. Today I am going to share some of the photos I took with all of you with the property owner’s permission. I will be going back for more appropriate exterior shots sometime this week, it was just too wet when I took these photos to do the exterior justice. I even got my camera a tad wet getting inside it was raining so hard at times! The Fox Chase Inn is a brilliant example of restoration and adaptive reuse. And these people did it because they wanted to do it right. No one told them they had to. And their caring and attention to detail shows. For more on the history of the property check out this file from West Whiteland’s website: Fox Chase Inn West Whiteland Site 325_ historic information . Here are some photos of the restoration in progress – and it is amazing because this place was a wreck when they bought it: BARN:FARMHOUSE:
File under longer letter later but I just had to share: I was invited to tour an AMAZING adaptive reuse by the new owners of the historic Fox Chase Inn on Swedesford Road in West Whiteland just before the intersection of Ship Road.
I have written about the Fox Chase Inn and its equally gorgeous neighbor the Benjamin Jacobs House before. Both are being restored. Both are being restored by people who care enough to do it right and who reside there.
I will post more photos at a later time but I just wanted to say WOW!!!! It is a beautiful restoration! Every township manager and supervisor in Chester County should look at what is happening in West Whiteland. Actual historic preservation and adaptive reuse.
The Fox Chase Inn on Swedesford Road was the first licensed public house in West Whiteland township, acquiring its first tavern license in 1786. Prior to that time, it had been a family home and, briefly, from 1775 to 1778, the home and workship of Eli Bentley, a well-known clockmaker. John Quinn was the owner by 1783 and after securing his license for the tavern, continued to run the public house until his death in 1793. David Williams was the new owner and he rented the inn to Thomas Cummins who ran it until 1800. After that time, no further petitions for license were filed for the Fox Chase.
I have said (and written previously) that ever since I came to Chester County I have loved this house alone in its own meadow and field on Ship Road in Exton. So I put a photo I took up on the Chester County Ramblings Facebook page and a friend of mine told me it was a house on the National Register of Historic Places, the Benjamin Jacobs House .
So today I got a new Twitter follower request and much to my delight it is the new owner of the Benjamin Jacobs house! And the house is being restored!!!
The owner, Sarah Toms, is chronicling the restoration in a blog. Personally, old house nut that I am, I am very excited about this! This is, after all something amazing in today’s age: someone actually wants to restore a truly amazing house like this! I can’t wait to read along with everyone else as the work progresses!
I’ve lived in Pennsylvania’s Chester and Montgomery counties since the mid 1990’s, and to be honest, the Exton area never spoke to me. For one, there’s no quaint town center like so many boroughs in this area to draw you in and make you want to explore the shops and neighborhoods. The busy routes 100 and 30, which transect Exton, are uninspired corridors of stop and go traffic lined with same-same chain stores and restaurants. It really could be Anywhere, USA. So when my husband Ben and I started looking for a home close to a train station and near our children’s charter school, we reluctantly decided to take a second look at this area.
The Benjamin Jacobs House was the first home for sale that we looked at online and based on the pictures and description, it seemed to be exactly what we were looking for. Large enough for our big family and situated in a peaceful park setting, Ben and I were excited to see it in person. We also liked that this home has a really interesting past that is connected to the founding of our country (Benjamin Jacobs’ father, John Jacobs, was Speaker of the House when the Constitution was signed, and Benjamin not only helped to fund the Revolutionary War but was also a signer of Continental Currency – stay tuned for more history!).
Our first viewing was in March, 2014 and I have to say my first impression as I pulled in and parked in the home’s parking lot (yes, it has a 15 car parking lot) was Addams Family, here I come! Half of the front porch had fallen down and was lying next to the house, all the exterior paint was flaking off, and there are no shrubs or gardens, so the huge white structure felt stark and at odds with its setting. The house sits a little way back from Ship Road, but given the unwritten rule that everyone must exceed the speed limit by at least 20 mph, I didn’t feel too keen about living on this busy road. When I looked to Ben to gauge his first impressions, I was amazed to see my beloved beaming from ear to ear. My English husband had finally found his country estate, and where I saw years of renovations ahead of us, he saw vast potential in this dilapidated gem. Our realtor Terry, who with his wife Lois, has helped us to sell and buy previous homes, let out a chuckle – he seemed to already know that this place would be right up the alley of his quirky clients.
Yes again, I am writing about the Joseph Price house in West Whiteland Township. It’s really starting to deteriorate badly in my opinion. (And I say that from observing it across the street today- I have not been invited to be on the property so I would not presume.)
This house is not completely deserted I am told there is still a caretaker who still lives there. However, this house has an uncertain future at best and nobody seems to know what will happen to it. Which is a shame because it’s very cool.
