Ridley Creek State Park - History

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:

    History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.
    Karl Marx (1818–1883)

    There is a history in all men’s lives,
    Figuring the natures of the times deceased,
    The which observed, a man may prophesy,
    With a near aim, of the main chance of things
    As yet not come to life.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    ... that there is no other way,
    That the history of creation proceeds according to
    Stringent laws, and that things
    Do get done in this way, but never the things
    We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
    To see come into being.
    John Ashbery (b. 1927)