East and West Nantmeal Townships
Reading/Redding Furnace
There were two furnaces built on the French Creek by Samuel Nutt in the early 18th century: one named Reading, and the other Coventry. The Reading Furnace was built in 1736 with a partner William Branson. When Samuel Nutt passed away in 1737, the Reading Furnace became the property of William Branson. In 1788 years after William Branson passed away, his grandson Samuel Van Leer took over the furnace. These furnaces developed a reputation for producing some of the best iron not just in America but in the British empire. They were used to produce artillery for the American war effort.
Isabella Furnace
The furnace was acquired in 1835 by Henry Potts (1797-1861), great-grandson of Pottstown's founder, John Potts. He came from a family of ironmasters, and continued this tradition by running his father's Glasgow Forge just northwest of Pottstown. He was joined by his brother in-law, John Potts Rutter. The furnace was named in honor of Henry's wife, Isabella Hitner (1799-1887)
Northern Chester County became noted for intermarriage between iron founding families including the Potts, the Rutters, the Nutts and the Savages..
"Col. Joseph Potts was born into the iron business at Springton Forge in 1829. That forge seems to have been an early casualty of the transition to large production methods, but despite losses, it continued operating. In 1880 Potts, who had been a senior engineer for the Pennsylvania Railroad, decided to renovate the site and modernize production. He arranged for a rail spur to be added to the East Brandywine and Waynesburg Railroad to ship in raw material and ship out iron car wheels. In 1890 Potts began construction of a 68 room chateau. In that same year an explosion demolished the stack on the furnace. The house was still unfinished when Potts died in 1893 at 61. His son William closed the mill but completed the house in 1897. Meanwhile the younger Potts had moved on to invest in John Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company and serve as President of the Kewanee Oil Co. in Oklahoma. He lived in the house until his death in 1943. The building was then sold to the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence. They still occupy the site at 227 Isabella Road, West Nantmeal."
-Mark Ashton, Chester County: A Modern History
George Lippard, A Man With a Dark Past
George Lippard was born in 1822 near Yellow Springs in Chester County. He didn't have a great childhood as his mother, father, older sisters, baby brother, and grandfather all passed away. As Lippard reached adulthood, the economy collapsed with the Panic of 1837. He had worked while still a teenager reporting crime for the Spirit of the Times. At the age of 20, he wrote his first story for the Saturday Evening Post titled, Philippe de Agramont. His writing was described as, "vivid, engaging and impassioned, if also sensationalistic." In 1844, George wrote his first novel Lady Annabel, which was admired by Edgar Allan Poe. Poe and Lippard became friends during Poe's stay in Philadelphia from 1838-1844.
Lippard's most celebrated work was the Monks of Monk Hall (1845) later republished as The Quaker City. It had a mix of horror and romance, and depicted how the rich and powerful controlled the poor population. The novel was America's best-selling work before Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, published in 1852. In that same year Lippard died at 32 from tuberculosis.
Charles Follen McKim, Architect
Charles Follen McKim (1847-1909) was born at Isabella Furnace in West Nantmeal Township, Chester County, the son of a prominent abolitionist and minister James Miller McKim. In the summer of 1866, McKim went to Cambridge, Massachusetts in hopes to find a tutor in mathematics and chemistry, but found an interest in studying architecture. After studying under architect Russell Sturgis, McKim traveled to Europe and attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Returning to the US in 1870, he entered the practice of H.H. Richardson. There he met his lifelong partners William R. Mead and Stanford White to form what may be one of America’s most prominent architectural firms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
"McKim seems to have been the first man in his profession to recognize the peculiar similarity of conditions in Europe at the time of the Renaissance with conditions in this country immediately after the Civil War. Both periods were times of awakening, — transitional periods when the people at large were realizing the extent and power of their material prosperity; and in the midst of all this potential activity to this firm came first the vision of a civilization equaling and even surpassing the civilization and prosperity of ancient and imperial Rome" - Granger, Alfred Hoyt, Charles Follen McKim : a study of his life and work
List of McKim's Famous Works
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Boston Public Library (1895)
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Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan (1904-1910) [photo at right]
Edward Woolman Nature Preserve
"Anyone who drives the Conestoga Road (Rte. 401) from Ludwig's Corner northwest toward Morgantown knows that the drive takes you through an immense marsh. It’s a magnificent drive through East Nantmeal Township although one does have to be prepared to share the road with countless deer, fox, turtles and other fauna. The land was and still is an amazing wildlife refuge. Much of that is because of Henry Woolman and his brother Edward decided to acquire and preserve 2,500 acres of marsh and woods in East Nantmeal in 1929 after making a fortune in the local dairy business.. Edward was active in the Pennsylvania Forestry Association." In 1935 Henry would found what has become the Horseshoe Trail which runs from Valley Forge northwest to an area just north of Hershey, PA.
-Mark Ashton, Chester County: A Modern History
In 2015, the marsh was conveyed to the French & Pickering Creeks Conservation Trust from the Nature Conservancy
Bibliography
Bean, Theodore Weber. History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Volume 1. (Philadelphia: Everts & Peck, 1884): 605-606.
Futhey, John Smith and Gilbert Cope. History of Chester County, Pennsylvania: With Genealogical and Biographical Sketches. (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1881): 344-347.
Heinze, Justin. "Over 600 Acres Of Ancient Land Turned Over To Chester County Land Trust." Patch. Last modified December 2, 2015. https://patch.com/pennsylvania/westchester/over-600-acres-ancient-land-turned-over-chester-county-land-trust.
Hoyt, Granger, Alfred. Charles Follen McKim : a study of his life and work. (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913).
Madigan, Andrew. "George Lippard: Gothic Architect." Full Stop. Accessed June 24, 2025. https://www.full-stop.net/2018/06/19/features/andrew-madigan/lippard/.
Nickels, Thom. "Philly Writer George Lippard, a Friend of Edgar Allen Poe." Huffpost. Last modified September 29, 2014. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/philly-writer-george-lipp_b_5633934.
"Pristine Woods and Fertile Farmland Now Preserved Forever." Vista.Today. Last modified December 18, 2017. https://vista.today/2015/12/pristine-woods-and-fertile-farmland-now-preserved-forever/.
Randall, H.H. The life and choice writings of George Lippard. With a portrait, and fac-simile of a portion of a letter written in the early part of his illness. (New York: H.H. Randall, 1855).
The Biographical Encyclopædia of Pennsylvania, of the Nineteenth Century. (Philadelphia: Galaxy Publishing Company, 1874): 200-201.