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Home : Quarterly Archives : Volume 11 |
Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society |
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Source: October 1960 Volume 11 Number 2, Pages 41–45 The old Lancaster of Conestoga road between the Upper Gulph Road Tredyffrin, and the West Chester-Pottstown road (Continued from Vol. V, No. 2) Part 1: To Warren Tavern Continuing westward we soon cross the main road to Valley Forge (now Route 83) and come upon a large and ancient oak to our left standing upon the seventy-acre farm to which in 1850 Eber Beaumont came from Old Saint David's Church. The Stage Tavern was to the south on the north side of Lancaster Turnpike and there Mr. and Mrs. Beaumont lived with their sons Theodore and Rush. Farming was carried on with success, Theodore and Rush also becoming favorably known as builders of the new macadamized roads then coming into popular use.
The Beaumont two story log home In later years an observation platform was fitted into the top of the oak tree and a winding stairway of wood built up to it. The new village of Devon was being developed in the eighties and nineties of the last century. The Beaumonts too had ground for sale -- higher, cooler in summer, better drained and with a better outlook than most properties nearby. This spot, later the home of Mr. Woodside, took the name of "Crow's Nest." Across the Conestoga to the north was the long two story log farm-house facing the road. The large farm barn, also of logs, was across what is now North Fairfield Road, and other log buildings were on the farm and nearby. At the time of which I write from memory the old farm and its environment thus constituted a distinct link with the past which was to continue until recent years. At the same time these energetic and progressive men with their fine farm and advanced ideas, including steers in the fields, water rams at the spring to supply water for domestic use, half a mile of sidewalks along the Conestoga and the road from it to the turnpike, coupled with the opening of Beaumont Road-now a part of Route 83- at their own expense, were forerunners of the great scientific and mechanical developments so soon to come. The late Frank Burns related that No. 343 Conestoga Road, immediately west of the Beaumont farm, was built a hundred years ago just in front of an old log house. It is probable that the rear line of the present house conformed with the front line of the log house. There is a distinct angle between the south line and the road as it is now and it is likely that this was brought about by a change in the course of the road. Across it until about 1920 there was a great gully or wash leading down the hill toward the turnpike. Probably it was from the road and increased in size over a space of many years. Long negligence may have brought it about or later diversion nay have been intended. At least it had the merit of reducing the unwanted supply of surface water and its collection at the foot of the little hill to the west. From the pond that formed there at times, water from north of the road, from both ditches and from the somewhat elevated road surface, was led under a wooden bridge and discharged into the yard of the small stone house that had long stood to the south. This old-fashioned way of doing things was satisfactory to everyone but those persons south of the road. It has been shown in the three preceding Quarterly articles by the late Boyle Irwin and Howard S. Okie that the Conestoga, as a great road of the province, was by 1720 at what is now Strafford and that in 1721 it was ordered that it be deemed the King's highway and public road from Philadelphia to Thomas Moore's mill on the Brandywine at Downingtown. The date of 1720 has now been bettered by ten years and, in view of what is now known as to local conditions then, there is no reason to doubt the road's use by that early date, public records at West Chester and known activities of the old parishes of the Saint David's Episcopal, Valley Presbyterian, and Great Valley Baptist churches as well as of the Valley Friends' Meeting, show that by 1710 a considerable number of settlers were already in the regions mentioned in this paper through which the road is known to have passed. But it is not in records relating to Conestoga Road that this date of 1710 has been obtained. It appears to be established that those papers are incomplete. There was, however, a petition for a public road desired to be opened from Jarman's Mill, north of Paoli and now known as Great Valley Mill, over the south valley hill and down the valley of Darby Creek near where Saint David's Church was to be built a few years later, to near Old Radnor Hunt. Properties over which the road was proposed to pass are named in the proceedings and each course of the road was to be marked by five notches on a tree. One of these courses was carried "to a chestnut standing by the roadside leading from the Great Valley to Philadelphia." For purposes of this story the course to the chestnut was a happy one, for it appears to indicate that the Conestoga was on the ground before the road of 1710. Some verification of this fact is to be found in road papers relating to a road desired in 1757 where the road of 1710 was referred to as of fifty years before and a plan was supplied showing such early road as crossing the Conestoga near what is now the Junior High School in Tredyffrin Township at Berwyn. While I have found no indication of the actual opening and use of this proposed road near Berwyn, the words quoted suggest most strongly that the Conestoga was there but that the great road took a different route, as otherwise the Jarman's Mill road would not have been needed. Also it would be expected that the petition for the latter road would have indicated that it was to be over or near the course of the established great road. Where, then, did Conestoga Road first pass down into Chester Valley? For the present at least our ambulatory course over the survey route of 1741 (although in opposite direction to it) will be continued to the welter of change near Warren Tavern; then from the Malin Hall region a line will be followed to the south to see if a clue will appear. Turning now to where the chestnut must have stood in 1710 beside the great road to Philadelphia and proceeding westward, it will be noted by reference to the plan of 1741 that the Conestoga did not have the sharp bend in it then which it has now at the Conestoga High School. Instead, it passed by long gently curving courses to the Globe or old Ball Tavern about four hundred feet south of Daylesford Station. Judged by the dates of its liquor licenses, this old inn antedated the road plan by six years at least. The inn with the inevitable spring close by is now a much altered dwelling house. Thence by gradual curve to the south the road crossed recently widened and improved Bear Road, formerly a plank road through at least part of its course, and passed between Bear Tavern and the turnpike which is now the Lincoln Highway. A little, further along it passed the General Jackson Inn standing on the north side of the pike and as a building at least to outlast The Bear by a generation. A quarter of a mile more to the west and the line of Darby and Paoli Road is left behind and we reach the spring across combined turnpike and routes 202 and 30 from Paoli Inn. Of the four inns mentioned, the old Ball was much the oldest and the Paoli -- which ranked with the Warren and the White Horse further west -- the most famous. All have been treated so fully by Julius Sachse in "The Wayside Inns of the Lancaster Roadside between Philadelphia and Lancaster" that further mention of them need not be made here. West of Route 202 the old road continued parallel with Lancaster Turnpike, over ground now of the Church of the Good Samaritan toward the Willistown-Tredyffrin Township line as shown by Robert Brooke's old Turnpike map. The location of William Evans' smith shop is shown by the road map of 1741, and road proceedings to be referred to later show the shop to have been beside the Conestoga at least as early as 1721. As showing early roads in this vicinity the T. J. Kennedy map of Chester County in 1856 is of much interest also. Passing down the hill through the Pennsylvania Railroad overpass the Lincoln Highway follows its new course through the Trenton Cut-off overpass near Warren Tavern while the pike and the Conestoga Road run west along the south side of this railroad to where Green Tree Station once was. The old tunnel is blocked off. The two roads now north of the railroad, having left the highway at a point north of the Pennsylvania Railroad overpass, begin to diverge from the line of the railroad and continue into Malvern to begin descent of the south valley hill. Junction is soon made with Moore Hall coming from Malvern and a little later the twentieth milestone appears close to where the toll house stood until recently. A fork is soon reached and from it one of the few clear views of Warren Tavern may be had. The Conestoga and the turnpike pass it on the south as Mr. Sachse has so entertainingly described, while the highway in its earlier location slants down the hill to its present position. Soon after emergence from the overpass Moore Hall Road appears on the right, soon to intersect old Swedesford at Valley Store. Leaving for the present a discussion of this most interesting and historic general region of the "remarkable stone" of the old survey of Swedesford Road we pass today over parts of Conestoga and Swedesford Roads and Route 401 toward the Warren Tavern a half mile to the south. The quoted courses and distances and road map of 1741 show the Conestoga to have been laid out at that time to join the Swedesford, then to extend "south 53 degrees, east 66 perches, to a chestnut tree, and thence south 44 degrees east 22 perches near to Robert Powell's house. Then leaving the old road and on George Aston's land 200 perches to a run and 80 perches to the old road. Further discussion of this entertaining region will be continued in a later section of this paper.
Conestoga Road north of Warren Tavern Adapted from map of Chester Co, in 1856. (Entered in Library of Congress in 1847 by S.M.Painter and J.S. Boweh) |
