A Brief History of Marple Township

Posted On September 5, 2020

By Sam Pickard

Marple Township was established more than 330 years ago. Before I start covering episodes and events in Marple’s history, I wanted to give a brief overview. This is in no way an exhaustive history, but hopefully it provides some context for future posts.

Marple Before 1800

Map from George Smith’s 1862 History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, depicting the location of early European settlers in Marple. The Great Road of Marple (now known as Sproul Road) roughly bisects the township (Courtesy of the Library of Congress).

During the 1600s, when Europeans (first the Swedish, then the Dutch, then the English) began to colonize what is now Delaware County, Pennsylvania, the land was inhabited by the Lenni Lenape people. The Lenape’s presence in what is now Marple Township is perhaps best known from the still-extant rock shelter Langford Road, where a Lenape woman’s grave was discovered in the 1940s.1 The Lenape were eventually displaced and forced out of their ancestral lands by European settlement, which greatly increased after King Charles II granted William Penn a royal charter to the land now known as Pennsylvania in 1681. Penn, a member of the Society of Friends (commonly known as Quakers), intended to create a haven for the pacifist Quakers and others persecuted for their religious beliefs in Pennsylvania.2

Between 1683 and 1684, land was surveyed and granted to 16 Quakers in Marple Township. Of the 16, 10 were from Cheshire, England, and the remainder were from Sussex, England, Wales, or the English colony of Barbados. The tracts of land varied in size from 50 acres for Mary Smith to 750 acres for Charles and John Bevan. Among these first grantees were names that would be familiar to current residents of Marple, such as [Ebenezer] Langford and [Peter] Worrall.3

At the time of the land grants, the township had a single road—the Great Road of Marple—now known as Sproul Road. During the next century more roads were laid out, the original tracts were subdivided, and saw and grist mills were established on the edges of the township along Darby and Crum Creeks. Some wealthier landowners also owned lots in Philadelphia or Wilmington and engaged in commercial ventures.4

The oldest extant portion of the Massey House (on the left in the photo) was built ca. 1696. Note the suburban development of Lawrence Park in the rear of this 20th century Historic American Buildings Survey photograph (Courtesy of the Library of Congress).

Despite this development, Marple was still a rural area focused on agriculture. No taverns are known to have existed, and perhaps more importantly for the residents, no Quaker (Friends) meeting houses existed within Marple. Residents would have to travel to Newtown Square, Radnor, Haverford, Providence, or Springfield meetings (the last of which was literally on the other side of the Marple-Springfield line).5

No fighting occurred in Marple during the American Revolution, though several British foraging parties pillaged farms on multiple occasions. Additionally, while Marple’s population were largely pacifist Quakers, some actively took up arms in support of the Continental Army, including Hugh Jones, Jonathan Morris, and members of the Worrall, Lawrence, and Burns families.6

19th Century Marple

During the 19th century, Marple Township remained a relatively rural, primarily agricultural community. Despite this, it was a time of great change in a variety of ways. Over the 19th century, farming in Southeastern Pennsylvania took on more of a mixed character focusing more on livestock. Hay, oats, and corn were often raised to feed herds of cattle, which in turn produced meat and dairy products like milk and butter. It’s likely that Marple Township farms followed a similar pattern as trends changed in the region as a whole.7

Helping facilitate the change in agricultural practices was the improvement in transportation. In the first decade of the 19th century two taverns opened on West Chester Pike in the township—the Drove Tavern in 1800 and the Buck Tavern in 1807.8 Additionally, while the Lamb Tavern (founded in 1808) is located in Springfield, it is located on a lot bounded on two sides by Marple Township.9

Early 20th century postcard depicting Marple Presbyterian Church (Author’s Collection).

Marple also gained its first houses of worship and associated graveyards in the early 19th century. The first was Marple Presbyterian Church, which was established in 1835 at Sproul and Marple Roads. The second church was the Union American Methodist Episcopal (UAME) Church, founded in 1838 along Old Marple Road at the southern edge of the township to serve the local African American community. While the UAME Church is no longer standing, its cemetery, now known as Hayti Cemetery, bears testament to its existence.10

While saw mills, grist mills, and tanneries had long existed in Marple, other small industrial operations cropped up during the 19th century. A “cotton factory” operated on Trout Run until it was destroyed by fire in 1848, while Benjamin Jones ran a pottery on West Chester Pike from the 1840s until the 1860s. There were also several small-scale quarrying and mining operations in the township, with some of the stone quarried being refined into whetstones (sharpening stones).11

The growing township was given its first post office in August 1849 when Ebenezer Curtis’ store across from the Springfield Meeting House was named the Marple Post Office. It continued to serve this role until it was closed in September 1903.12 The township gained a second post office in 1870 when the Broomall Post Office was opened in a store on the site currently occupied by the McDonald’s at West Chester Pike and Sproul Road. The new post office was named in honor of Congressman John M. Broomall. With the closing of the Marple Post Office in 1903, the mailing address for much of the township became “Broomall, Pennsylvania.”13

Plate from Everts & Stewart’s 1875 atlas of Delaware County showing Marple Township (Courtesy of the Library of Congress).

The road from Philadelphia to West Chester became a turnpike from West Philadelphia to Newtown Square in 1848, with travelers paying tolls to travel on the road which was initially paved with planks and later stone. By the end of the 1890s, West Chester Pike was paralleled by an electric trolley which transported passengers between Upper Darby and West Chester.14 Marple’s first and only railroad station, on Sproul Road at Darby Creek, also opened in the 1890s, but passenger service on the line stopped in 1908 due to competition from the trolley.15

The First Half of the 20th Century

In the early 20th century, Marple remained “almost exclusively an agricultural township,” according to John Woolf Jordan’s 1914 history of Delaware County.16 A change was noted in a county history two decades later, which stated that “Large country estates and some small farms characterize the township.”17

Spurred in part by the trolley line, the area became home to vacation cottages, summer camps, and riding clubs.18 The trolley and improved roads also led to Marple having a greater appeal as a commuter suburb. The early 20th century suburban development of Marple Heights or Larchmont near Newtown Square was soon joined by others. One of these, Edgewood Park, was built on both sides of West Chester Pike in about 1940 and foreshadowed the future with its standardized tract housing.19

After the 21st Amendment repealed the national prohibition of the manufacture or sale of alcoholic drinks, beer distributors and state stores were allowed in Marple. In 1935, however, retail liquor sales were banned in the township, followed by retail beer sales in 1939. The one exception was the township-owned Paxon Hollow Country Club. This prohibition was not repealed until 2019.20

The Second Half of the 20th Century

In the years after World War II, a prosperous economy, increased car ownership, and subsidized low-interest loans led many white city-dwellers to relocate to the suburbs. Here they found large new developments of tract housing at affordable prices. In Marple Township, Frank Facciolo’s Rose Tree Woods development on the southwest side of Sproul Road and Ralph Bodek’s Lawrence Park development along the township’s eastern edge were two of the largest. Lawrence Park is especially notable for Bodek’s inclusion of an industrial park and a shopping center which was developed by the supermarket chain Food Fair.21 This shopping center eventually boasted a movie theatre, variety stores, and a full-blown department store.22

This ca.1957 house in Lawrence Park was typical of the development that became common in Marple (Author’s Collection).

With the increasing suburbanization of the township old landmarks faded away. Trolley service to West Chester was discontinued in 1954 and West Chester Pike was widened.23 Historic structures like the Drove Tavern were demolished and new buildings were erected for the public library, post office, and eventually a municipal building. A 1956 fire destroyed the Marple Newtown High School, resulting in the present structure’s construction (though it technically sits across the township line in Newtown Square).24 In the 1990s, I-476, locally known as the “Blue Route” was opened though Marple, connecting I-95 in Chester with the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Plymouth Meeting.25

Originally posted September 5, 2020.

Citations

  1. Mary Maples Dunn and Richard S. Dunn, “The Founding, 1681-1701,” in Philadelphia: A 300-Year History, ed. Russell F. Weigley, Nicholas B. Wainwright, and Edwin Wolf 2nd (New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1982), 3; Elizabeth C. Lodge, Marple’s Heritage 1684- (Philadelphia: T. A. McElwee (printer), 1969), 26; Mike Mathis, Marple and Newtown Townships (Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 1998), 12.
  2. Dunn and Dunn, “The Founding,” 1-6.
  3. Lucy Simler, Marple Township: The First 100 Years, ed. Bonnie Scott (Marple Township, Pennsylvania: Havertown Printing Co. (printer), 1986), 14, 16-17.
  4. Simler, First 100 Years, 42-43, 106-111.
  5. Simler, First 100 Years, 58.
  6. Simler, First 100 Years, 128-129, 132-135.
  7. Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission, “Southeastern Pennsylvania Historic Agricultural Region, c. 1750-1960,” 26-30, Agricultural Resources of Pennsylvania, c. 1700-1960, last modified 26 August 2015, http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/portal/communities/agriculture/files/context/southeastern_pennsylvania.pdf.
  8. Henry Graham Ashmead, History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: L. H. Everts & Co., 1884), 583-584.
  9. Ashmead, History of Delaware County, 731.
  10. Ashmead, History of Delaware County, 581-582; Lodge, Marple’s Heritage, 19.
  11. Ashmead, History of Delaware County, 582.
  12. Lodge, Marple’s Heritage, 21; Mathis, Marple and Newtown Townships, 51.
  13. Lodge, Marple’s Heritage, 21.
  14. Stephen J. Edgcumbe, West Chester Pike (Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2012), 7-8.
  15. Phil Klaus, “The Newtown Square Branch.” High Line 7, no. 2 (Winter 1986-1987): 4-5. Philadelphia Chapter, Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society.
  16. John W. Jordan, ed., A History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania and Its People (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1914), 297.
  17. Charles Palmer and Lucile Shenk, eds., A History of Delaware County Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: National Historical Association, 1932), 110.
  18. Palmer and Shenk, History of Delaware County, 110, 310.
  19. Palmer and Shenk, History of Delaware County, 110; Ellis Kiser and J. M. Lathrop, Atlas of Delaware County, East of Ridley Creek (Philadelphia: A. H. Mueller, 1909), plate 30; Franklin Survey Company, Real Estate Atlas of Upper Darby, PA. and Vicinity (Delaware County — Volume II) (Philadelphia: Franklin Survey Company, 1942), plate 30.
  20. Kathleen E. Carey, “Marple, Lansdowne voters to decide liquor question,” Delaware County Daily Times, 27 March 2019, 3.
  21. Barbara Miller Lane, Houses for a New World: Builders and Buyers in American Suburbs, 1945-1965 (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2015), 4-5, 94-111.
  22. “Snellenburgs to Open Store Near Broomall,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 3 November 1959, 29; “Snellenburg’s Rites Set for Saturday,” Delaware County Daily Times, 20 November 1959, 5.
  23. Mathis, Marple and Newtown Townships, 60, 78.
  24. Mathis, Marple and Newtown Townships, 45-47, 50-52.
  25. Mathis, Marple and Newtown Townships, 93; Lane, Houses for a New World, 95.

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