East and West Bradford Townships
Bradford Friends Meetinghouse
The Bradford Meeting was established in 1716, but its independence as a meeting wasn't recognized until 10 years later when Abraham Marshall, father of botanist Humphry Marshall, allowed the Friends to use part of his land until they could find a permanent space for their worship. In 1729, the land in West Bradford was purchased, and in 1765 the present meetinghouse was built. The trustees of the meeting were Abraham Marshall, Richard Woodward, Peter Collins, and Richard Buffington.
John Beale Bordley and the Como Farm
John Beale Bordley (1727-1804) was born in Annapolis, Maryland and was educated at the Chestertown Free School with Charles Peale (father of famed painter Charles Willson Peale) as his teacher. At the age of 17, he studied law under his stepbrother Stephen. In 1767, he was appointed as the Judge of the Admiralty. He was also part of Governor Horatio Sharpe and Governor Sir Robert Eden's Council where he formed friendships with the governors.
During his life, he decided upon a "life of independence," as a farmer. In the early 1770s, he established a farm in Wye Island with 1,600 acres, and traveled to England to study husbandry and agriculture. During a visit to Philadelphia, he got involved in that social circle and became a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1783 where he lectured about agriculture. In the end, in 1792, John moved out of Wye Island and settled in Chester County to establish his "Como Farm." Bordley's experimentation with crop management and crop rotation ranks him among the leading 18th century men of science. Those who followed his recommendations typically saw crop yields soar, allowing Chester County grains to become an export commodity.
Eli Kirk Price, Lawyer
Eli Kirk Price was the son of Philip Price who came to Pennsylvania with William Penn in 1682, and settled in Haverford. His first job was at a store owned by John W. Townsend. He continued working in Philadelphia at a counting-house of Thomas P. Cope, a shipping merchant in the Liverpool trade. During his free time, he read law, and decided to go into that profession in 1819. He was admitted to the Philadelphia bar in 1822. In 1850, Eli travelled to Harrisburg to convince the PA House and Senate to secure the consolidation of the city and county of Philadelphia. When that didn't work, he ran for Senate and served from 1854-1856. He engineered legislation to triple the size of Philadelphia, making it the city we know today. With others he orchestrated the acquisition of the 2,000 acres that makes Fairmount Park (now 4,100 acres) the largest municipal park in America.
There's a fountain next to the Washington Monument in Eakins Oval that was named in his honor.
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The Chester County Almshouse
"An Act to provide for the erection of Houses for the employment and support of the Poor in the Counties of Chester and Lancaster."
- February 27, 1798
"[Six directors] met at the court-house, November 5th, and by lot divided into three classes, the first to serve one year, the second two years, etc. On the next day they accompanied the commissioners to several places, but came to no conclusion. On the 21st, the commissioners having viewed Stephen Harlan's place, in West Bradford, and five of them having agreed upon it, Edward Darlington and Joseph Cope were authorized to purchase it. The deed was dated Dec. 10, 1798, and the price 3000 (pounds); but Deborah Harlan, wife of Stephen, would not sign until March 1, 1799, which she received $30. The farm contained 325-1/2 acres, with an allowance of six per cent for roads, as was then usual. 20-1/2 acres of of the parcel lay in the township of Newlin. The land is of good quality naturally, and its situation in the basin of the west branch of the Brandywine is one of the most beautiful in the county."
- History of Chester County, PA
Bibliography
Futhey, John Smith and Gilbert Cope. History of Chester County, Pennsylvania: With Genealogical and Biographical Sketches. (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1881): 238.
Gibson, Elizabeth Bordley. Biographical Sketches of the Bordley Family, of Maryland: For Their Descendants, Part 1. (Philadelphia: H. B. Ashmead, 1865).
The National Cyclopædia of American Biography, Being the History of the United States as Illustrated in the Lives of the Founders, Builders, and Defenders of the Republic, and of the Men and Women who are Doing the Work and Moulding the Thought of the Present Time. (New York: James T. White & Company, 1900): 412-413.