East and West Brandywine Townships
Forks of the Brandywine Presbyterian Church
In the early 1700s, there was a large number of Scotch and Scots-Irish immigrants, most of Presbyterian faith, who arrived in Pennsylvania due to King Henry VIII's renouncement of Catholicism. Beginning in 1729, their numbers increased, but at the same time they were scattered all over the area. They ended up getting occasional visits from pastors from Presbyterian churches who spoke English. One of the pastors who visited was Reverend Adam Boyd. He considered the people in West Brandywine part of his congregation, and the people supported him and his contribution. Thus, a first meeting together was held in Octorara in 1734.
After receiving permission, they purchased a triangular lot and built their church. It was opened on April 4, 1735. The church building on 1648 Horseshoe Pike did not come until thirty years later. It was designed by Samuel Sloan, a nationally famous architect born in nearby Honey Brook.
Thomas Buchanan Read, Artist and Writer
Thomas Buchanan Read was born in a small hamlet outside Downingtown known as Corner Ketch; a road name still extant today. He descended from Scotch and Irish immigrants who played a role during the American Revolution: his great-grandfather, Reverend Thomas Read, helped General George Washington during the British invasion of Maryland, just before the Battle of Brandywine. As a young boy, Thomas worked as an apprentice around Chester County and in Philadelphia. He then traveled to Cincinnati where he met sculptor Shobal Vail Clevenger after being seen painting boats on the Miami Canal. While in Cincinnati, millionaire Nicolas Longworth noticed Thomas's remarkable portraits, and gave him funds to maintain a studio. Longworth also had Read paint his portrait. Later, friends of then presidential candidate William Harrison asked Thomas to paint a portrait of him. When he failed to get more work, Read moved to Boston where he would meet the people who would change his life forever: Washington Allston and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. During his free time, Read writes. He made his first formal appearance as a writer in 1845 with his work Paul Redding: A Tale of the Brandywine, dedicating it to Nicolas Longworth. After traveling back and forth between America and Italy, he joined the Union Army during the Civil War where he wrote the poem Sheridan's Ride. It depicts Union General Philip Sheridan on horseback. This work was so popular that the Union League of Philadelphia asked Read to create a painting version of his poem. It hangs in the Union League today.
Bibliography
Futhey, John Smith and Gilbert Cope. History of Chester County, Pennsylvania: With Genealogical and Biographical Sketches. (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1881): 705-708.
Keller, I. C. "THOMAS BUCHANAN READ." Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 6, no. 3 (1939): 133-146.
M'Clune, James. History of the Presbyterian Church in the Forks of Brandywine, Chester County, Pa. (Brandywine Manor Presbyterian Church)
From A.D. 1735 to A.D. 1885, with Biographical Sketches of the Deceased Pastors of the Church, and of Those who Prepared for the Christian Ministry Under the Direction of the Rev. Nathan Grier. (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1885): 21-25.