Upper and Lower Oxford Townships
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 acquiring a 260 acre parcel of land.
"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
Oxford Library Company
In 1784, 28 residents of Oxford, Pennsylvania collected 28 books and formed the Oxford Library Company. The Oxford Library is the oldest library in Chester County and the third oldest in Pennsylvania. The Library Co. of Philadelphia dates to 1731 and the Union Library of Hatboro began in 1755.
"It was a subscription library kept in private homes, having limited membership. In 1868 it was opened to the public (over 15 years old) for the purchase of a share of stock and an annual fee of one dollar, and was made a free public library in 1939, when it became a beneficiary of the Community Chest."
- Oxford Library Company
Evan Pugh, Founder of Penn State University
Evan Pugh (1828-1864) was born in Jordan Banks (now Oxford), but migrated to New York to be apprenticed as a blacksmith. He later returned to his hometown to teach school. After for two years moved to Leipzig, Germany where he would meet Samuel W. Johnson, who would become his lifelong friend and correspondent. The two decided to come to America to jointly establish an agricultural school in Pennsylvania. Samuel proposed Evan would be the person to head such a school.
After 4 years of studying in Europe and convincing British scientist John B. Lawes to investigate the accumulation of free nitrogen by plants, Evan returned to Pennsylvania and assumed presidency of the PA Farmers' High School in Centre County. In 1861, he was granted $49,900 to erect more buildings for his school. A year later, the school was renamed the Agriculture College of Pennsylvania. It wasn't until in 1874 the school was once again renamed, this time as the Pennsylvania State University.
Homeville Meetinghouse
"Samuel Gatchell, Asa Walton, Isaac Clendenin, Mahlon Brosius, William Brosius, with their families, and other Friends, obtained leave to hold an Indulged Meeting in a school house of Asa Walton's in Coleraine, Lancaster County in 1828. In 1839 the meeting house at Homeville, Chester County, was built, and the meeting established therein."
- John Smith Futhey and Gilbert Cope, History of Chester County, Pennsylvania (1881)
Lincoln University
"Lincoln University was chartered by the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 1854 as the Ashmund Institute. This makes it the first degree granting historically black college in the world; 69 years before nearby Cheyney University conferred its first baccalaureate degree. The school was founded by John Miller Dickey and his wife, Sarah Emlen Cresson. Dickey was the son of the Presbyterian minister in Oxford and grandson of a Philadelphia marble merchant. Dickey had preached in the South and together with his Quaker wife, promoted abolition and the education of free blacks. Meanwhile, having been unsuccessful in securing the admission of any black student to nearby colleges, Dickey approached the diocese in New Castle for permission to try to create an institute of higher learning for such people. Ironically, Dickey’s goal seems to have been to train students as part of the 'back to Africa' movement. That movement advocated emancipation of black people coupled with exile to Africa. A year after Lincoln’s assassination, the college adopted the President’s name and sought to expand to a university with graduate and professional programs."
- Mark Ashton, Chester County: A Modern History
Horace Mann Bond
President of Lincoln University
(1945-1957)
Langston Hughes
Class of 1929
Writer and Social Activist
Kwane Nkrumah
Class of 1939
First President of Ghana
Thurgood Marshall
Class of 1930
Supreme Court Justice
Nnamdi Azikiwe
Class of 1930
First President of Nigeria
Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila
Class of 1994
Fourth prime minister and First woman to hold that office in Namibia
The Oxford Fire Company
Reverend John Miller Dickey went to Philadelphia assigned to bring back a leather hose and a hand fire engine that formed the Oxford Fire Company on February 6, 1871. George E. Jones was the pioneer organizer of the fire company, and was elected Chief Engineer. Fate answered within five months when the Oxford had a fire of consequence on July 5 caused by lightning. The company's name was later changed to the Union Fire Company No. 1.
Oxford Friends Meeting
"In 1878 an Indulged Meeting was held at Oxford by permission of Pennsgrove and Nottingham Monthly Meetings. In 1879 a house was built and opened for use on the 9th of 11th month."
- John Smith Futhey and Gilbert Cope, History of Chester County, Pennsylvania (1881)
Miss Oxford Diner
Originally called the Silk City Diner, the diner came to Oxford in 1954, made by the Paterson Wagon Company. Paterson made steel diners in New Jersey from 1926 to 1966.After being closed for several years, Tom Greenfield restored and reopened this Diner in 1994 as Miss Oxford Diner.
Ox-Grove Bowling Alley Made a Cameo
The 1992 teen love story That Night contains a scene shot at the Ox-Grove Bowling Alley in Oxford.
Bibliography
"50's Style Diner in Oxford, PA." Miss Oxford Diner. Accessed June 28, 2025. https://www.missoxforddiner.com/.
Fire and Water Engineering 69, no. 1 (1921): 512.
Futhey, John Smith and Gilbert Cope. History of Chester County, Pennsylvania: With Genealogical and Biographical Sketches. (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1881): 242.
"History." Oxford Library Company. Accessed June 27, 2025. https://oxfordpubliclibrary.org/history/.
"History Overview." Union Fire Company No. 1. Accessed June 28, 2025. https://www.oxfordfire.com/content/history/.
Hoffman, Steven. "'I want people to be able to step back in time when they come here.'" Chester County Press. Las modified July 25, 2017. https://www.chestercounty.com/2017/07/25/150663/i-want-people-to-be-able-to-step-back-in-time-when-they-come-here-.
True, Alfred Charles. A History of Agricultural Education in the United States 1785-1925. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1929): 67-71