East and West Nottingham Township
The Dickey Family
Samuel Dickey, II (1730-1794) came to America after being born in Northern Ireland. He initially settled in East Nottingham before marrying in 1759 to a local family of prominence in Lower Oxford and acquired a 260 acre parcel.
"The Dickey family was, by 1800, Nottingham's premier family in an academic, agricultural and industrial scene. The family favored abolition and played a role in founding today's Lincoln University."
- Mark Ashton, A Chester County History
Hugh Williamson, Founding Father
Hugh Williamson (1735-1819) grew up in a Presbyterian family, and was enrolled in a Presbyterian school. He attended the College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania) twice and earned degrees in mathematics and medicine. Later in life he became a renowned independent scholar, and was inducted in the American Philosophical Society.
Williamson actually witnessed the Boston Tea Party and then testified about it before Parliament through his open letter to Lord Mansfield. When the British occupied Philadelphia, he went south to Edenton, North Carolina where he lived for the rest of his life. He worked as a tanner, shipbuilder, and physician, securing the attention of Governor Richard Caswell. After inoculating North Carolinian soldiers against smallpox, Hugh was named the state's surgeon general. In 1782, he was elected in the General Assembly by the people. In 1787, Williamson was named a delegate to the federal Constitutional Convention.
Maps + Magnetism = John Churchman
John Churchman (1753-1805) was a man of many things: surveyor, a self-taught student of magnetic phenomena, and cartographer. In 1785, he rented his tract of land on the Octoraro Creek to Henry Till. In partnership with Samuel Hughes, they hoped to build a furnace on the barren land below the "Horseshoe" bend of the Octoraro Creek.
In 1790, John published Magnetic Atlas where he showed "the magnetic variation for the whole globe and a further elaboration of his theories."
Walter P. Reynolds and the “Sanitary Milk Movement”
Walter P. Reynolds (1859-1952) was born in Cecil County, Maryland where his grandfather lived. His grandmother who was from West Grove, Chester County, PA. Walter's father, Joseph, moved to East Nottingham Township in Chester County in 1863 acquiring 175 acres where he conducted a dairy farm with 30 cows. Walter was educated at the West Chester State Normal School (now West Chester University), and follow his father's footsteps to pursue a career in farming., purchasing a farm of his own.
"In the 19th century milk was not a very reliable product. Milk quality was quite varied and often a vector for disease, including typhoid and tuberculosis. The development of reliable systems for refrigeration during the Civil War sparked a change in demand. Americans began to see merit in consumption of milk in quantity as it was now perceived as a safe commodity. Milk production doubled in Chester County between 1850 and 1880. Land which had once been devoted to growth of wheat and then shifted to beef was now home to milk production and rail lines were run to bring immense quantities of milk and related dairy products to the city. Early dairy production focused on making butter. The 'skim' was often devoted to fattening hogs, giving rise to another farm raised product. But the development of pasteurization in the 1890s and homogenization processes together with refrigeration and bottle storage made milk the 'healthy' drink we know today. This gave birth to what is termed a 'sanitary milk movement.' An early adherent to this was Walter P. Reynolds, an Oxford farmer who adopted the practices of cleaning cows and the farmer’s hands before milking and refrigerating the product for shipment."
- Mark Ashton, Chester County: A Modern History
Herr Foods Inc. Moves to Nottingham
The Herr Foods Inc. was founded by James "Jim" S. Herr (1924-2012) when he purchased a small potato chip company in Lancaster, PA. A year later in 1947, Jim developed new and improved ways of cooking potato chips. He moved his company to West Willow, PA into a 3,600 square foot bakery facility where he and his wife Mim worked. In 1951, a fire broke out in the factory. It wasn't until one year later the Herr family, their friends, and the bank purchase 37 acres and built a bigger, 4,500 square foot plant in Nottingham, PA in Chester County.
Nottingham Serpentine Barrens
"The area composing Nottingham Park in southern Chester County is known as a 'barrens' because serpentine is found among poor quality soils. The 650 acre park itself has tree and plant growth more reflective of California or the plains of Africa than the rest of the county. Unfortunately, serpentine is a fragile rock when exposed for decades to auto and industrial pollutants. The Brinton Quarry from which it was mined just south of West Chester, became flooded in the late 1880s and the site was repurposed as the Quarry Swimming Association at 1153 South New Street, West Chester."
- Mark Ashton, A Chester County History
Bibliography
Bradley, A. Day. "John Churchman, Jr. of Nottingham." Bulletin of Friends Historical Association 43, No. 1 (1954): 20-28.
Cheney, Jim. "Hiking Through the Beautifully Unique Nottingham Serpentine Barrens of Nottingham County Park." Uncovering PA. Last modified November 9, 2021. https://uncoveringpa.com/hiking-nottingham-serpentine-barrens.
Cope, Gilbert and Henry Graham Ashmead. Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Chester and Delaware Counties, Pennsylvania, Volume 1. (Salem: Higginson Book Company, 1904): 464.
Futhey, John Smith and Gilbert Cope. History of Chester County, Pennsylvania: With Genealogical and Biographical Sketches. (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1881): 303.
Kickler, Troy L. "Hugh Williamson (1735 – 1819)." North Carolina History Project. Accessed June 28, 2025. https://northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/hugh-williamson-1735-1819/#:~:text=Born%20in%20Chester%20County%2C%20Pennsylvania,Revolutionary%20and%20post%2DRevolutionary%20America..
"Our History." Herr's. Accessed June 28, 2025. https://herrs.konsoka.com/about-herrs/our-history/.