Charlestown Township
Charles Pickering
Charlestown was named after Charles Pickering, who came to Pennsylvania with William Penn and wandered up the Schuylkill River to find treasure. Around the Pickering Creek he supposedly found deposits of silver, and used them to coin money later declared counterfeit. He was tried in 1683 for setting up a private mint for the "Quoining of Spanish Bitts and Boston money." After his death, the land of 1,000 acres in Chester County was divided amongst 16 of his friends.
Pickering Ice Dam
In order to harvest ice, you would need a river, a creek or a pond to operate. The Pickering Dam Trail has the ruins of what was once a place where ice was collected by the Knickerbocker Ice Company. The company was founded in New York, and expanded to Philadelphia where they operated a plant by the Schuylkill River. It was the second largest ice supplier in the city, next to the Cold Spring Ice and Coal Company owned by Thomas E. Cahill. He was the one who created the movement to combine all the ice suppliers in the city into one big company: the American Ice Company.
In 1889, there were five artificial ice plants in Pennsylvania. The technology to "manufacture" ice was advanced by a Charlestown resident, Thaddeus Lowe.
Bibliography
Futhey, John Smith and Gilbert Cope. History of Chester County, Pennsylvania: With Genealogical and Biographical Sketches. (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1881): 169-170.
"Pickering Trails." Charlestown Township. Accessed July 8, 2025. https://charlestown.pa.us/parks_pickering_trail.aspx.
"Rodin Museum/ Knickerbocker Ice." Friends of Matthias Baldwin Park. Accessed July 8, 2025. https://www.baldwinparkphilly.org/rodin-knickerbocker.
The Friend, Volume 62. (Philadelphia: William H. Pile's Sons, 1889): 36-37.