Biographical and portrait cyclopedia of Chester County, Pennsylvania : comprising a historical sketch of the county, by Samuel T. Wiley, together with more than five hundred biographical sketches of the prominent men and leading citizens of the county, Part 2

Author: Garner, Winfield Scott, b. 1848 ed; Wiley, Samuel T
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : Gresham Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 916


USA > Pennsylvania > Chester County > Biographical and portrait cyclopedia of Chester County, Pennsylvania : comprising a historical sketch of the county, by Samuel T. Wiley, together with more than five hundred biographical sketches of the prominent men and leading citizens of the county > Part 2


Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).


Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105


66


636


Eaches, John T.


484


Moore, Col. Daniel Foulke


426


Fetters, Capt. Abraham


567


Parke, Samuel R. 504


474


Fulton, Hon. William T.


416


Rothrock, Joseph Trimble, M. D


446


Futhey, Robert Agnew ..


313


Smith, Hon. Percifor Frazer 222


Gilfillan, John . 300 66


State Capitol at Harrisburg. 98


Gilkyson, Col. Hamilton H


436


State Normal School at West Chester 149


Green, Jesse Cope.


575


Talbot, Hon. D. Smith


747


Hannum, Curtis H


593


Urner, John R.


467


Heckel, Frederick William, M. D.


726


Waddell, Hon. William Bell


191


Hodgson, William H.


680


Walters, George


406


Howell, Charles H.


494


Walters, Lonis R


875


Johnson, Joseph H.


386


Way, Marshall S.


778


Kaler, Hon. Levi B ...


711 Williams, Andrew J


282


Denithorne, Capt. John. 366


Miller, Joseph K. on


733


Downing, Samuel Rhoads. 618


Monaghan, Robert Jones


Francis, Casper S


376


Philips, George Morris, Ph. D.


HISTORICAL SKETCH


OF


CHESTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.


Boundaries and Arex -Territorial Changes - Geol- ogy -Topography - Mineralogy - Zoology-Bot- any -Prehistoric Races -Indian Occupation - Dutch. Trading Posts - New Sweden - Upland County -Penn's Purchase-County Formation- Early Settlers - Intercolonial Wars - Mason and Diron's Line - Revolutionary War- Removal of County Seat -Whisky Insurrection-Turnpikes- Iron Industries - War of 1812 - La Fayette's V'isit - Nehuylkill Canal - Early Railroads - Mexican War - Underground Railroad - The Civil War - Progress and Development - Agri- culture - Postoffices - The Press - Churchex- Nehools - Banks - Political and Civil Roster- County Societies - Secret Orders - Townships- Boroughs-Census Statistiex - Miscellaneous. .


W THILE it is not within the scope of a work of this character to treat exten- sively of history, yet the publishers have deemed it most essential to present briefly the important events of the history and. development of this grand old county be- fore proceeding to record the biographical sketches of its representative citizens.


CHESTER COUNTY, Pennsylvania, first-born of the sixty-seven counties of the Keystone State, is in the southeastern, or garden part. of the Commonwealth, and lies between 39 ° 42' and 40° 30' north latitude, and 75° 15' and 76° 15' west longitude front Green- wich, England, or 55" and 1º 40' east lon-


gitude from Washington city. As a politi- cal division of the State, it is bounded on the north by Berks and Montgomery coun- ties, on the east by Montgomery and Dela- ware counties, on the south by Newcastle county, Delaware and Cecil county, Mary- land, and on the west by Lancaster and Berks counties. The width of Chester county, measured along the Pennsylvania railroad, is thirty miles ; its extreme lengthi, north and south, thirty-six miles; and its area by the census of 1880, 760 square miles, or 486,400 acres. Its northern border line is fifteen miles; northeastern, twenty-one miles; southeastern, eighteen miles; south- ern, thirty miles; and western border line, twenty-eight miles; making its perimeter one hundred and twelve miles.


Territorial Changes. - The territory of Chester county was organized as Upland county by the Swedes, and Penn changed the name to Chester, which was the name that he had allowed his friend Pearson to bestow upon the town of Upland in remem- brance of the city of Chester, the county seat of Cheshire county, in the west of England. The many English towns having this name, Chester, in their composition were


( 17 )


2


18


BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY


originally Roman camps, and the Latin word castra and the Saxon ceaster in time changed to the English chester.


The territory of Chester county was a part of the following colonies for the re- speetive times specified :


New Netherlands, from 1609 to 1638.


New Sweden, front 1638 to 1655.


New Netherlands, from 1655 to 1656. New Amstel, front 1656 to 1664.


New York, from 1664 to 1673.


New Netherlands, from 1673 to 1674.


New York, ( under the name of Upland county ), from 1674 to 1682.


Upland county, New York, became Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania, in 1682, but his- tory does not record the month and day, which tradition, however, affirms to have been November 25th. From 1729 to 1850 the following twenty-five counties were taken -the first two directly and the other twenty-three indirectly - from the territory of Chester county: Lancaster, May 10, 1729; Delaware, September 26, 1789 ; York, from Lancaster, August 19, 1749; Cumber- land, from Lancaster, January 27, 1750; Bedford, from Cumberland, March 9, 1771; Westmoreland, from Bedford, February 26, 1773; Washington, from Bedford, March 28, 1781; Fayette, from Westmoreland, September 26, 1783; Franklin, from Cun- berland, September 9, 1784; Dauphin, from Lancaster, March 4, 1785 ; Huntingdon, from Bedford, September 20, 1787; Allegheny, September 24, 1788; Somerset, from Bed- ford, April 17, 1795; Greene, from Wash- ington, February 9, 1796; Beaver, March 12, 1800; Butler, from Allegheny, March 12, 1800; Erie, from Allegheny, March 12, 1800; Mercer, from Allegheny, March 12, 1800; Crawford, from Allegheny, March 12, 1800; Cambria, from Allegheny, March


26, 1804; Lebanon, February 16, 1813; Perry, from Cumberland, March 22, 1820; Blair, February 26, 1846; Lawrence, March 20, 1849; and Fulton, from Bedford, April 19, 1850.


In addition to the above counties, there were several others that were partly taken from Chester.


Of the sixty-seven counties of the State, in order of age, Chester is the first; in order of alphabetical designation, the fifteenth ; and in population ranks fourteenth. In geographical position Chester county is one of the southeastern counties of Pennsyl- vania, while its geographical center and center of population are not a great dis- tance apart, aud both are said to be in the neighborhood of Caln postoffice, on the Pennsylvania railroad.


The county is in the Sixth Congressional district, composed of the counties of Ches- ter and Delaware; constitutes the Nine- teenth Senatorial and Fifteenth Judicial dis- tricts, and is entitled to four members in the house of representatives of Pennsylvania.


Geology .- Prof. J. P. Lesley, in his Geo- logieal Hand Atlas of 1885, deseribes Ches- ter county as follows :


"A perfectly straight valley, two miles wide on the Montgomery county line at the Schuylkill river, and less than one mile wide near the Lancaster county line, separates the northern from the southern townships. The Siluro-Cambrian limestones of No. II., which occupy this 'Chester county' or ' Downingtown' valley, dip generally 30° to 50° sonthward, although small antielinal rolls run diagonally aeross their general strike, and the white marble strata, con- fined to its southern edge, stand quite ver- tical. The North valley hill is made by the


19


OF CHESTER COUNTY.


Pottsdam sandstone, No. I., rising northward from beneath the lowest limestones, and spreading in sheets and patches over a con- siderable gneiss region, embracing Honey- brook, East and West Nantmeal, West Vincent, East and West Pikeland, Charles- town, Upper Uwchlan, East and West Brandywine, and parts of West Caln and Sadsbury townships; and it is plain that the fundamental gneiss area now exposed was formerly entirely covered by both the Potsdam quartzite and the overlying limestone. The South valley hill, on the contrary, is the edge of a low tableland (500' to 600' A. T.) composed (1) of a belt of magnesian-mica slate; also vertical, or dipping at the highest angles southward, apparently in contact and conformity with and over the marble beds of the south edge of the valley, but possibly overturned and beneath the marble, in which latter case the valley is a synelinal trough, and the slates south of it are equivalent to the quartzite north of it; or else a fault runs along the south edge of the valley. The belt of South valley hill slate is only two miles wide at the Schuylkill end; widens west- ward to three miles at West Chester; four and one-half at the West Branch Brandy- wine; and then spreads over East and West Fallowfield, Highland, Londonderry, Up- per and Lower Oxford, and East and West Nottingham townships into Lancaster county; (2) a belt of okler and newer gneisses and mica-schists occupying all the townships to the south and east. Isolated areas of limestone, however, occur in this belt near West Chester, Doe Run, Kennett's Square, Avondale, Landenburg, etc. ; and Potsdam quartzite seems to be preserved around London Grove and at points on the Delaware State line. A long range of ser-


pentine separates the two belts in East Goshen and Willistown townships, and an- other still more extensive serpentine belt ranges along the Maryland line into Lan- easter county, and carries deposits of chrome- iron sand. A trap dyke enters from Dela- ware county at the south edge of the slate belt, and extensive outspreads of trap bowl- ders occur along the Berks county bond- ary. in the north ; other local exhibitions of trap being numerous in various parts of the county. Between the Schuylkill river and French creek the country is wholly of mes- ozoie brown sandstone and shale ; and in the tunnel at Phænixville through these rocks a large collection of fossil plants and rep- tiles was made by Dr. C. M. Wheatley. Copper, lead, and zine veins have long been mined to a small extent along the contact line of the mesozoic and gneissie rocks. The large magnetic iron mines of Warwick, connected with both trap and New Red rocks, but really belonging to the underly- ing azoic floor, are still worked. Small quantities of brown hematite ore have also been obtained from the valley limestone. The white marble quarries are numerons, but none of them large."


Professor Lesley further says that the limestone formation, No. II., was originally deposited over all southeastern Pennsyl- vania. There can be no doubt that the Lancaster county limestone formerly cov- ered the whole of northern Chester, and that it was removed by gradual erosion before the deposit of mesozoic sediments; for there is no appearance of the limestone at the present edge of the mesozoic area along French creek, and there is ample evidence that the mesozoie itself originally covered the district beyond its present limits. That the limestone formation, No.


90


BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY


IL., once overspread southern Lancaster, southern Chester, and Delaware counties, and the northern part of the State of Dela- ware also, is shown by the relics of it left at various places; and in all such places it is accompanied by its underlying Potsdam sandstone, No. I. The lowest palæozoic formation in Pennsylvania, No. I., logically identified with the Potsdam sandstone of northern New York, makes its appear- ance in the Welsh mountain in northern Chester.


Professor Lesley further says: " The geology of southern Adams, York, Lan- caster, and Chester is still obscure -a region of metamorphic rocks-mica-schists, chlorite schists, and gneiss of various kinds, inter- terrupted by belts of serpentine and marble, and carrying deposits of kaolin and chrome iron sand. Where the Susquehanna river crosses Mason and Dixon's line a belt of roofing slate is extensively quarried, and a multitude of plant-like fossils have been found, pronounced by competent authority to be a buthrotrephis of Hudson river age, which looks as if the roofing slate forma- tion of Northampton and Lehigh counties once extended over southern Pennsylvania ; and this idea has been carried so far as to suppose that the talcose and micaceous and garnetiferous serpentine - bearing schists which form a wide border to the Chester county limestone valley from York east- ward along the South valley hill, and across the Schulykill to Chestnut hill in Philadel- phia, instead of being sub-calciferous, Pots- dam, sub-Potsdam, or Cambrian strata, are really metamorphosed Hudson river strata, overlying the limestones of the valley, the top layers of which would then be Trenton beds, turned to white marble."


In "The Geology of Chester County,"


edited by J. P. Lesley, after the surveys of Rogers, Frazer, and Hall, and published in 1883, it is said that the great regularity of Mr. Rogers' belts, and the utter irregularity of Mr. Hall's areas, strikingly exemplify the difference between the conclusions arrived at in a difficult region like this, by the earlier geologist, who made everything bend to his theory of parallel, overturned anti-clinals and synelinals, and the observations of the later geologist, who is fettered by no such theory, but is perhaps quite as strongly influenced by a different sentiment -that the azoie forma- tions spread out over one another with moderate inclinations unconformably, and that " the genuineness of the Potsdam sand- stone outliers in southern Chester seems to be proven by Doctor Frazer's discovery of numerous casts of the Scolithus linearis in its outcrops in London Grove township. Whatever may be thought of the structure of southern Chester county, all the indica- tions point towards a probability that the lowest or primal members of the Palæozoic system of formations (Siluro-Cambrian, Nos. 1 and 2) once spread over the whole region, and have since been in great part eroded. But if the quartzite (Potsdam proper) of the North Valley hill varies so much as to be absent in the South Valley hill, and yet be present in townships to the south, while conformably enclosed between upper and lower primał słates ( the latter of great thickness ), then we can no longer look upon this semi-metamorphosed sand and gravel bed as the universal shore deposit of the early Palæozoic sea, uncomformably resting on the schists and gneisses of preceding Huronian and Laurentian ages. In fact, it renders doubtful the existence of such a sea, and rather suggests a number of more or less isolated water basins, which were


21


OF CHESTER COUNTY.


not combined into an ocean until the opening of the magnesian limestone age." The superficial covering of Chester county has been derived from the immediately under- lying rocks, but, however, gravel deposits exist which are not referable to the mother rocks of the locality.


Professor Lesley says: "It has been my duty to exhibit the obstacles which lie in the way of a true understanding of the structural geology of the Philadelphia-Bal- timore belt. Little more can be said than that the first geological survey did some- thing to reveal the structural geology of the Philadelphia-Baltimore belt; and that the second geological survey has added its mite to the revelation ; but that a great deal more light must be thrown upon it before we can congratulate ourselves upon a proper and satisfactory knowledge of it."


Two geological maps of Chester county have been printed : Prof. Persifor Frazer's, in 1880, and Prof. C. E. Hall's, in 1882. They differ radically from each other. as well as from Prof. II. D. Rogers' State map of 1858. These three able geologists- Rogers, Frazer, and Hall -differ from each other in their views of the order and super- position of the formations, and leave several points of geology in almost as great obseur- ity as they found them.


Proceeding from the south to the north boundary line, Chester county is divided into five distinctly marked geological re- gions : 1, southern gneiss; 2. mica-slate or South Valley hill: 3, Downingtown valley limestone : 4, northern gneiss : 5. Schuylkill or mesozoic.


1. The first region embraces the larger part of the county south of West Chester, and consists of svenite. feldspathic, and porphyry rocks, gneiss, sehists, and quartzite


beds, with patches of serpentine and crys- talline limestone, beds of impure limonite, pure kaolin and corundum.


2. The mica-slate region is from two to four miles wide, and lies between the south- ern and middle regions of the county, but its geological relationship to both is still in dispute.


3. Downingtown valley limestone, or central division, averages from one to two miles in width, and extends westward across the county from Willow Grove, Montgomery county, to Quarryville, Lancaster county. It is fifty-five miles in length, and has been generally classed by geologists as a line- stone basin or valley. Its geological features are in part simple and clearly defined, and in part so obsenre as to lead to discussion and diversity of opinion. This limestone is of formation No. II., and is the same as the C'alciferous. Chazy, and Trenton limestone formations of the New York survey, and the Auroral limestone of Professor Rogers. It is the Knoxville limestone of the south and the Magnesian limestone of the west. It over- lies the Potsdam sandstone. Rogers claims a synelinal structure for the valley, while HIall insists upon its monoclinal character. There are numerous marble quarries and iron-ore mines in this valley. Along its northern border extends the celebrated Potsdam sandstone. C. E. Hall found well developed areas of Laurentian syenite, sandstone, quartzite, limestone, hydro-mica- schist, and serpentine. There are several serpentine quarries ,and chrome mines in this region. and the Brinton serpentine quarry, opened in 1730, which produces yearly from six to twenty thousand cubic feet of stone. From Brinton's and other serpentine quarries of sonth Chester, stone is sent to Philadelphia. New York. Wash-


22


BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY


ington, Baltimore, and Chicago, where it has been used in the construction of some of the most prominent structures of those cities.


4. The northern gneiss region embraces nearly all of northern Chester, and its north- eastern azoie border line passes from near Valley Forge, in a winding manner, through Schuylkill and East Pikeland to French creek, which it follows to the Berks county line. Pipe clay, graphite, and valuable veins of hematite iron ore exist in this region. Magnetic iron ore of good quality has been found in Honeybrook township.


5. The Schuylkill or mesozoic region occupies the northeastern part and is the red sandstone region of Chester county. An arm of the ocean once stretched across New Jersey and southeastern Pennsylvania into Maryland and Virginia, in which one of the last sedimentary formations was the mesozoic red sandstone. The dip of these sandstones and their accompanying shales is one of the most difficult questions of American geology. The mesozoic sand- stone rests on a floor of gneiss which has faults, in which trap dykes play an im- portant part. From the largest of these faults have been great outbursts of trap. which form high ridges, while the trap that issued from the smaller ones was unable to reach the surface. These hills of trap in the open rolling country of red sandstone are "the eroded outcrops of outbursts of igneous rock along cracks which go down to great depths beneath the floor of older rocks to some profounder reservoir of lava, now extinct, but similar to that which at the present time underspreads the western part of the United States, feeding active volcanoes and geysers, and prodneing earth- quakes and fractures of the crust of the earth. Ancient volcanoes and geysers do


not seem to have existed on the Atlantic border, but outbursts of lava took place through and between the layers of the mesozoic strata, and these now constitute the trap hills of the mesozoic region." The old name of trap was basalt, and Professor Rogers says it is " a union of augite, feld- spar, and titaniferous iron," the augite predominating.


The fossils of this region include most of those generally found in the mesozoic for- mation. Many fossil bones, teeth and plants have been collected at Phoenixville, and at other places in the region, and Dr. W. D. Hartman says : " Immense fish, prob- ably ichthyosaurus, or plesio saurus, visited this (Chester county sea ) vast estuary."


The mineral veins along the edge of the mesozoic, west of Valley Forge, are partly in the gneiss and partly in the mesozoic. These veins are of copper, lead, iron, and plumbago, and will be noticed in the history of the different townships.


Professor Frazer makes nine distinct groups of rocks in Chester county, which, he states, cannot be arranged into an exact chronological scale at the present, owing to certain vexed questions of structure. Com- mencing with the lowest, he gives them as follows: Syenites and feldspar porphyries, imitation syenites, mica-schists, thin mica- schists, argillitic or hydro-mica-schists, lime- stones, serpentine, new red or mesozoic sandstone, trap-dykes, and gravels.


Dr. Groff, in his classification, gives them as : gneiss, mica slate, tale slate, serpentine. limestone, sandstone, red sandstone, horn- blende rock, trap, and quartz.


Topography .- The surface of the county is undulating and hilly, the soil of every variety and highly productive, and it is well


23


OF CHESTER COUNTY.


wooded and well watered. The topography of the county will be given in the same order as its geology. The southern gneiss region, a beautiful and populous section of the county, is a rolling country of hill and dale, with rich farms, good roads, and com- fortable dwelling houses, the latter mostly built of stone. This region embraces all of Londonderry, Penn, New London, Elk, West Marlborough, London Grove, Frank- lin, Newlin, East Marlborough, New Gar- den, London Britain, Pocopson, Kennett, Pennsbury, West Goshen, Westtown, Thorn- bury, and Birmingham ; and parts of Upper Oxford, Lower Oxford, East Nottingham, West Fallowfield, Highland, East Fallow- field, West Bradford, East Bradford, East Goshen, Willistown and Easttown townships.


Its general elevation above ocean level is about four hundred feet, while its streams have cut down to a depth of between one or two hundred feet. They flow between steep and sometimes rocky banks, and are crossed by high railway bridges and em- bankments. One railroad, the Philadelphia & Baltimore Central, crosses it from west to east in the southern part, while three roads cross it from north to south-the Pennsylvania & Delaware, in the west : the Wilmington & Northern, in the centre: and the West Chester & Philadelphia, in the east.


The following carefully compiled table shows the altitude of a number of points in the southern gueiss region, all located on the different lines of railroad passing through that section of the county :


ON PHILADELPHIA & BALTIMORE CENTRAL RAILROAD.


Mlles from Phila. ahove tide.


Feet


Chadd's Ford ( Brandywine


creek ) ..


16 129


Fairville station 19 255


Miles from Feet


Phila. above tide.


Rosedale station.


20 312


Kennett Square station 22 260


Toughkenamon station 25


283


Avondale station ( X P. & D.), 26 227


West Grove station. 29


444


Penn station. 32


506


Elkview station. 33


Lincoln University station. 35


...


Oxford (junction of P. B. R. R.) 38


.....


Columbia and Pennsylvania D.


junetion Susquehanna river, 57 .....


ON WEST CHESTER & PHILADELPHIA RAILROAD.


West Chester. 27 .406


Hemphill


318


Street road


25


252


Cheney 23 240


Glen Mill


22


199


Darlington


20


143


Baltimore Central R. R. jnnc. 19


133


Lenni 18 136


Glen Riddle 17


160


Greenwood. 16


218


Media 14


210


Manchester


211.5.


Wallingford 13


168


Swarthmore


11


125


Morton


10


121.5


Springhill


9


128


Clifton


7 109


Kellyville


6


102


Darby road


103


Fernwood 90


Angora


3


74.5


Woodland street.


57


Philadelphia Depot, Thirty-


first and Chestnut streets .... 0


14


ON WILMINGTON & NORTHERN RAILROAD.


Miles from Feel


B. Junc. above tide.


Coatesville (X Penn. R. R.) .... 30.7 315


Modena


33.3 278


24


BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY


Miles from B Junc. above tide.


Feet


Mortonville


36.1


260


Laurel


241


Embreeville


38.3


231


Glenhall


41.4


218


Northbrook


209


Seeds


43.3


195


Lenape


45.2


183


Pocopson


46


180


Chadd's Ford.


48


175


Smith's bridge


53


209


Centre


54.6


263


Dupont's


60


282


Wilmington


63


12


ON PENNSYLVANIA & DELAWARE RAILROAD.


Miles. Above tide.


Pomeroy (junction P. R. R.) ... 0 483


Doe run.


6 374


Pusey's summit. 10


470


Pennock's summit


463


Avondale (X Phil. & Balt. Cent.


R. R.) ..


15


282


Newark, in Delaware


26


118


Delaware City. 38


16


The drainage of the district is good. All of its rivers flow southeastward, and most of them furnish excellent water power for the numerous mills and factories situated on their banks. In the east, Darby, Crum. Ridley, and Chester creeks flow into the Delaware river; in the central part the east branch of the Brandywine river re- ceives the waters of Valley creek and Broad, Taylor's, Plum, and Radley's runs. while the west branch has as tributaries Ring's run and Red Clay and White Clay creeks; and in the west, Elk. Little Elk, and North East creeks flow south into Maryland.


The mica-slate region borders the south- ern gneiss country on the north and west, and is a narrow belt of land which is often


called the South valley hill, or hydro-mica schist belt. It traverses the county from east to west, with a width of from two to four miles, to the Wilmington & Northern railroad, and then suddenly widens out and sweeps down along the east side of Octo- raro creek with a breadth of ten to thirteen miles. It embraces parts of West Notting- ham, East Nottingham, Lower Oxford, Up- per Oxford, West Fallowfield, Highland. East Fallowfield, West Bradford, East Brad- ford, West Whiteland, East Whiteland, East Goshen, Willistown, and Easttown. The surface of this region rises to the north- ward into the South valley hill or ridge, overlooking the Downingtown valley. The soil is well cultivated and produces good crops. The elevation of its highest hills is about six hundred feet above tide level. The railroads passing over its surface are the Pennsylvania and the old and new West Chester branches.




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