History
The bulk of the property was acquired in the late 1960s from the estate of well known horse breeder Walter M. Jeffords, Sr. and his wife Sarah, a niece of Samuel D. Riddle. The Jeffords had acquired the land starting about 1912 in small parcels, until they had over 2,000 acres (8.1 km2), which was the largest private undeveloped property in the Philadelphia area by the 1960s. By 1918 they had built a large mansion, now the park office, around a stone colonial farmhouse. Twenty-four other historic properties were located on the grounds, many farmsteads that had retained family ownership since the seventeenth century. In 1976 these properties were registered on the National Register of Historic Places as a national historic district.
The area was originally settled by English Quakers and remained agrarian into the twentieth century. The oldest property is the 1683 Worrel House. In 1718 a water mill, then known as Providence Mill, began to grind corn. In the late 18th century a plaster mill was established next to the grist mill. A rolling and slitting mill replaced the plaster mill by 1812, and became known as Bishop's Mills. Workers cottages, a dam, and several outbuildings complete the mill complex, now known as Sycamore Mills. The mills operated until 1901, when they were damaged by fire.
The Colonial Pennsylvania Plantation is a living museum on the 112-acre (0.45 km2) farm where the Pratt family lived from 1720-1820. Admission is charged and it is open to the general public on weekends from April through November.
Read more about this topic: Ridley Creek State Park
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“The myth of independence from the mother is abandoned in mid- life as women learn new routes around the mother—both the mother without and the mother within. A mid-life daughter may reengage with a mother or put new controls on care and set limits to love. But whatever she does, her child’s history is never finished.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)