East and West Fallowfield Townships
Fallowfield Meeting
The Fallowfield Meeting was founded in 1792 by members of the New Garden Monthly Meeting. It wasn't until 1794 when they sought approval from the Monthly Meeting to build a new house of worship in Fallowfield. It was this meetinghouse where Rebecca Lukens married Germantown physician Charles Lukens on March 25, 1813, and the same place where she was buried in December 1854. During the time between 1813 and 1854, Rebecca would be the driving force behind the creation of Lukens Steel in Coatesville.
Laurel Rolling Mill
The Laurel Rolling Mill on the West Branch of the Brandwyine (Buck Run) was built in 1825, and rebuilt in 1856 by Hugh E. Steele. The Laurels is reputed to have produced plate used to construct the Union ironclad ship "Monitor" although there are historians who challenge that assertion.
Osborne Perry Anderson, Survivor at Harpers Ferry
Osborne Perry Anderson was born in West Fallowfield Township in Chester County. After attending Oberlin College, he moved to Chatham, Canada where he worked as a printer at a newspaper owned by Mary Ann Shadd. In 1858 Osborne met John Brown, an abolitionist who orchestrated the murderous anti-slavery riots in Kansas (1855) and at Harpers Ferry (1859) Anderson was one of the five survivors from the latter attack who escaped capture, and the ONLY African American to do so. He would later write an account of the raid called A Voice from Harper’s Ferry.
People’s Hall
"In 1845, as the county and the nation struggled over slavery and even the matter of how and when the issue could be discussed, some Quakers at Fallowfield erected People’s Hall. Pro slavery forces had begun to destroy buildings occupied by anti-slavery advocates beginning with the burning of Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia in May 1838. In 1844 Philadelphia endured anti Catholic riots that saw church buildings destroyed. That same year the Quaker meeting in Fallowfield voted to ban speeches within its walls that might promote violent responses. A group within the meeting decided they would not be intimidated by threats of violence. They bought the adjoining parcel and built a 'People’s Hall' where every “question, creed or race” could be fully debated. Above the platform they painted the words 'Let Truth and Error Grapple.'" People's Hall remains today.
- Mark Ashton, Chester County, A Modern History
Bibliography
Fallowfield Friends' Meeting House, Ercildoun, Pennsylvania, One Hundredth Anniversary. (1811): 31-35.
Futhey, John Smith and Gilbert Cope. History of Chester County, Pennsylvania: With Genealogical and Biographical Sketches. (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1881): 242.
Lesley, J. Peter. The Iron Manufacturer's Guide to the Furnaces, Forges and Rolling Mills of the United States. (New York: John Wiley, 1859): 233.
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Westbrook, Ariana. "Osborne P. Anderson (1830-1872)." BlackPast. Last modified March 29, 2009. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/anderson-osborne-p-1830-1872/.