Map of Rose Valley borough

Rose Valley is a small, historic borough in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. Its area is 0.73 square miles (1.9 km), and the population was 913 at the 2010 census. The area was settled by Quaker farmers in 1682, and later water mills along Ridley Creek drove manufacturing in the nineteenth century.

In 1901, Rose Valley was founded as an Arts and Crafts community by architect Will Price, who bought 80 acres (320,000 m) of land around the former Rose Valley textile mill. Price was a follower of Henry George’s economics (Georgism). Price also co-founded Arden, Delaware, a utopian single tax community based on Henry George’s economic model. Nevertheless, the Georgist single-tax ideal was never implemented in Rose Valley. Crafts works soon foundered, leaving a legacy of impressive architecture, a preserved landscape, and a regional theatre, the Hedgerow Theatre (founded in 1923), as well as an artistic community that includes writers, painters, and architects. As a former mayor said, “Rose Valley is an island of non-conformity.” The Rose Valley Historic District, covering essentially all of the borough, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010.

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Rose Valley location map. Where is Rose Valley borough?

History

Native Americans of the Leni Lenape or Delaware tribe lived in the area when Europeans began arriving. A major trade route, the Great Minquas Path, passed through the site of the present borough, along Long Point, a hairpin turn in Ridley Creek, and then across the creek and through the center of the borough. Furs were carried along the path from Native Americans on the Susquehanna River to European traders on the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers.

Soon after William Penn received his charter for the Colony of Pennsylvania, three brothers, Thomas, Robert, and Randall Vernon, received land grants from Penn to settle over 900 acres (360 ha) in the present borough of Rose Valley and Nether Providence Township. The brothers arrived in Pennsylvania in 1682 and began farming the area, about 4 miles (6 km) north of Chester, which was then the largest settlement in the colony. Though the brothers purchased their land in 1681 while still in London, the land was not surveyed and patents were not granted for the land until years, perhaps decades, later. The Providence Great Road (now PA 252), just to the north of the borough, was laid out in the 1680s, and Brookhaven Road, on the borough’s eastern boundary, was laid out in 1705.

Randall Vernon’s house was built before 1700, and still stands. Robert Vernon may have built the house known as the “Bishop White House” about 1695. The name of the house comes from its use by the family of Bishop William White during the yellow fever epidemic of 1793 in Philadelphia. Though the bishop visited the house, he generally stayed in Philadelphia in 1793. Will Price modified this house after 1900, adding a stone porch and red tile roof. The Vernon families continued living in the area into the nineteenth century. The American Revolution split family members, who served as soldiers on both the American and British sides.

Many veterans of the Revolution are buried in now unmarked graves in the cemetery of the Old Union Methodist Church, the only church in the borough. The roots of the church may go back to 1804, and it was officially organized in 1811. The current building dates to 1835.

Following the Revolution, land in the southwest corner of the present borough was confiscated from a Vernon family member who had supported the British. The land was eventually sold to Jacob Benninghove, a Philadelphia tobacconist, who built a large mansion there in 1787. About the same time, he built a dam on Ridley Creek and a water-powered snuff mill. Samuel Bancroft bought the house in 1831 and named it Todmorden Mansion. He lost the house in bankruptcy in 1842, but bought it back in 1857 and lived there until 1889. He built tunnels and secret chambers in the house for use in the Underground Railroad.

• Randall Vernon House, built before 1700

• Bishop White House, c. 1695

• Todmorden Mansion, built 1787 of green serpentine stone

• Old Union Methodist Church

Rose Valley Road Map

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Geography

Rose Valley is located in central Delaware County, 1.5 miles (2.4 km) south of Media, the county seat, and 4 miles (6 km) north of Chester. It is bordered by Nether Providence Township to the north, east, and south, and by Middletown Township to the west. Ridley Creek, a southward-flowing tributary of the Delaware River, forms the western boundary of the borough.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the borough of Rose Valley has an area of 0.73 square miles (1.9 km), all land. It has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa) and monthly average temperatures range from 32.6° F in January to 77.6° F in July. [1] The local hardiness zone is 7a.

See also