CHESTER COUNTY
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952 CHESTERVILLE ROAD BOX 153
LEWISVILLE, PA 19351 |
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HOME
PAGE | MEETING MINUTES
| BUILDING PERMITS | CALENDAR OF EVENTS | PRIVACY STATEMENT Drawing the Line
a brief History of the Mason-Dixon Survey, 1763-1769. Requires Adobe Reader The Elk Township
History Book is complete and available for sale. It may
be purchased at the Township Office during regular business hours. The
price is $50 and may be paid by cash or check payable to Elk Township. If you
would like more information on the Elk Township History Book, please
contact Mary Gruber at
610-255-4303 or Fran Jackson at 610-932-8551. |
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Elk Township HistoryElk
Township was formed in 1857 from 10.4 square miles that were formerly part of
East Nottingham. Besides being the smallest township geographically in the
area, it also is the least populated. As part of the historical
"Nottingham Lots," its settlement dates to a grant from William
Penn in 1701. In 1763
Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon began a survey for the Royal Society to establish
the boundaries of the lands of the Penn family and those of the Calverts. The
survey, which
delineated the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland and the southern
boundary of Elk Township, was completed in 1769. It is
not surprising that this township is dotted with mills, since it is bordered
on the east by the Big Elk Creek, with branches of the Little Elk Creek
winding through the area. A part
of the Serpentine Barrens is also included in the township, and gives its
name to the Barren branch of the Little Elk Creek and Barren Road. The
township boasts three covered bridges: the Linton Stephens, named for a
postmaster at Hickory Hill; The Rudolph and Arthur, an 80-foot bridge built in 1880 by
Richard T. Meredith and named for a mill along the stream; and the Glen Hope Bridge, which crosses the Elk Creek just north
of the Maryland border. "Between
1850 and 1909 a large dam above the bridge site supplied power for a paper
mill. Three generations of the Rudolph family were active in the paper mill
operations. When the bridge was built in 1880, Charles Arthur was a member of
the paper firm that operated under the name of Rudolph and Arthur,"
writes Arthur E. James, author of Covered Bridges of Chester County. The Glen
Hope Bridge is 65-feet in length and was built in 1889 by Menander Wood and
George E. Jones with a Burr-like arch truss. The bridge was burned by vandals
in the late 1980s and was restored by 1994. The Linton Stephens Bridge is in the northernmost of the
township, bordering on New London Township. This bridge was built in 1886,
also with a Burr truss, by J. Denithorne and Son. It is 102-feet in length,
and while a car may cross it, the road beyond is open to vehicles with
permits only. The VillagesElk
Mills Located
along Elk Mills Road about where Rogers Road comes into it, the village of
Elk Mills was a center of business activity during much of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. Besides being the site of a succession of mills, Elk
Mills was also the location of a store and a post offices. Tradition
says Henry Hollingsworth had a mill on the Little Elk in 1724, perhaps the
first mill in the area. A later mill was purchased in 1880 by Lewis
Sharpless, who believed it had been in operation for more than a century.
This mill, a combination saw- and grist-mill, had been owned previously by
James Brown and before that by Jesse Woolens. When a
post office was established in Elk Mills on October 22, 1869, Jamse Brown was
appointed postmaster, and may have operated out of his mill. Lewis Sharpless
served as postmaster from 1882 until 1909, when the Elk Mills post office was
closed. Mount
Rocky Located
in a part of the Barrens, Mount Rocky was named when George Churchman gave a
patent to Elisha Gatchell for 45 1/2 acres of Lot #13 of the Nottingham Lots.
It was in this vicinity that the Mount Rocky Methodist Church was built of
squared logs in the early part of the nineteenth century. Hickory
Hill In and
around the area known as Hickory Hill were grist- and sawmills, a limekiln,
and the Little Elk Friends Meeting, established in 1825. The village was
called Nottinghamdale until the establishment of a post office in 1850 when
the name was changed to Hickory Hill. Lewisville Lewsiville
grew up at the junction of at the junction of several roads. In this
instance, Route 472 ends (or begins) in this community, as does Route 841.
The road from Strickersville also comes into this village, making a hub,
which no doubt accounts for the fact that the Lewisville post office was one
of the early ones, having been established in 1848. James McDowell was the
first postmaster. The present home of the Lewisville post office was opened
December 8, 1975. Excerpted from Around the
Oak, Oxford Area Tricentennial and County Fair Committee and
Tricentennial Publications Committee, 1982 Additional information about Elk Township bridges
from A Guide to Old Covered Bridges of Southeastern Pennsylvania and
nearby areas website,
and an article "Covered Bridges keep History Alive," by Valerie S.
Nosek in the Solanco Sun Leger, October 2002. |
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