Isaac Burn and His Failed Mineral Spring Resort

Posted On November 27, 2020

By Sam Pickard

Two hundred and ten years ago this August, Isaac Burn (also spelled Burns) advertised his Mineral Chalybeate Springs in Marple Township as a health and pleasure resort. Seeking to cash in on the popularity of mineral spring resorts, the cash-strapped Burn tried for several years to make an attractive and entertaining venue on his property along Malin Road, but ultimately failed.

The location of the Mineral Spring on Ash’s 1848 Map of Delaware County, Pennsylvania (Courtesy of the Library of Congress).

Isaac Burn’s Debts

Isaac Burn had money problems.  The son of Quakers William Burn and Jane Penrose, Isaac was born in 1753 and likely raised on his parents’ Marple Township farm, which was pillaged by British troops during the American Revolution.1 As early as 1783, the year the Revolutionary War ended, Isaac Burn found himself in debt. The 29-year-old ran a notice in the Pennsylvania Gazette, a Philadelphia newspaper, in February of that year instructing his creditors that they could collect a portion of their money by appearing at his home in Marple on March 6th.2 When his father died in 1791, Isaac was left a 70-acre farm in Marple Township. Crucially, the property was not actually given to Isaac in the will, but essentially left in a trust for his use. The will stipulated that after Isaac’s death the farm would be sold and the proceeds would be divided among Isaac’s children.3

Unfortunately, Isaac Burn needed money. In 1792, the year after his father died, his brother Joseph Burn took him to court over a debt of £78.4 Burn found himself back in court a decade later in March 1803, when both his brother Joseph Burn and James Barnard sued him for failing to repay debts.5 Burn was subsequently imprisoned in the county jail for his repeated failure to pay his debts. In April 1803, he petitioned the court for relief (and release from jail) as an insolvent debtor. Burn listed 15 creditors on the petition, including the estate of his recently deceased mother. On May 24, 1803, with James Barnard serving as a witness, Burn transferred all of his property (real estate and personal possessions) to his mother’s executor to pay his creditors.6

It is not known what exactly Burn did between 1803 and 1810, but at the end of those seven years he found himself the proprietor of a mineral spring resort in Marple Township.

Mineral Spring Resorts

First, what is a spring? Simply put, springs are when groundwater seeps or flows out onto the surface because the layers of soil or rock below prevent it from infiltrating deeper into the ground. Mineral springs are simply springs where the water has become infused with enough dissolved minerals and organic materials to have a distinct character.7

People around the world have bathed in and imbibed the water from mineral springs for medicinal purposes for thousands of years. In the years after the American Revolution, prominent Philadelphia doctor Benjamin Rush advocated that patients visit springs in the Philadelphia area for a whole slew of chronic diseases and conditions. These conditions ranged from bowel and bladder issues to gout and epilepsy. Rush directed would-be partakers to start imbibing water slowly, beginning with only a half pint of mineral water a day. They should couple this with moderate exercise and eating several small meals in the place of two or three large ones. Despite his support of mineral springs, Rush appeared to understand their limitations, noting that the springs, “like most of our medicines, are only substitutes for temperance and exercise in chronic diseases.”8

Realistically, the primary effects of most mineral waters were probably just palliative at best. Some might have had genuine purgative or laxative qualities and chalybeate waters–due to their high iron content–supposedly helped those with anemia.9

While the mineral spring baths ostensibly began for health reasons, some gained a reputation as pleasure resorts. While the Delaware Valley’s mineral springs never developed into the large resorts seen in other parts of the country during the late 19th century, they did have their day in the sun. Most of these resorts were relatively modest, but that did not stop them from drawing guests. Early mineral springs near Philadelphia, such as Bath in what is now the Northern Liberties neighborhood, provided guests with breakfast, tea, and coffee, and even began selling season tickets.10

By the late 1780s, visitors to Harrowgate Gardens, located near Frankford in what is now (appropriately) the Harrowgate neighborhood of Philadelphia, would have quite a entertaining experience. Season tickets for both bathing and drinking the waters could be purchased, meals and lodging could be found in the adjoining inn, and during the summer months there were evening concerts. In one history of mineral springs in the Philadelphia area, it is noted that in August 1791, newspaper ads for Harrowgate Gardens made no mention about the health benefits of mineral water, but they were sure to note the pair of bars in the garden and a third bar conveniently located in the bathhouse.11

Marple’s “Mineral Chalybeate Springs”

It was during the height of mineral spring resort popularity that Burn allegedly discovered one such spring on his own property. In August 1810, Burn ran ads in Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser promoting his “Mineral Chalybeate Springs.” Burn reported that he had erected both “Bath and Summer Houses [an expansive term referring to shelters ranging from pavilions to small buildings] for the accommodation of those who wish to resort there for the benefit of their health, for pleasure or for curiosity.”12

The ad made the bold claim that “Medical Gentlemen” had found the spring’s medicinal qualities superior to any other in “America or perhaps the world.” More importantly than the medicinal qualities of the water, Burns noted that “LIQUORS of the best kind will be provided,” for guests, as well as entertainment.13

Possible remnant of the spring in 2020 (Author’s photograph).

The following spring, Burn petitioned the Delaware County Court of Quarter Sessions for a tavern license. While the Quarter Sessions records themselves have been lost to time, Henry Graham Ashmead quoted a portion of it in his 1884 History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Backed by 22 signatories who vouched for his character, Burn claimed that he needed a license for a public house because people might be deprived of the water’s health benefits “for want of the necessary accommodations for entertainment.”14

Accompanying the petition was a certificate with the testimonials of three men–Samuel Lewis, John Hortor, and George Lewis–who claimed to have drunk and bathed in the spring water the previous summer. The men variously claimed that they were cured of a sick stomach, eye inflammations, and rheumatism of the arm, respectively.15

Burn’s petition was rejected by the court and no license was issued. This did not stop him from reiterating the availability of liquor in a newspaper ad from July 1811, as well as a newly constructed “Shower Bath.”16 Burn applied for a license again the next year, but he was once again rejected.17

In June 1813, Burn was still advertising his Mineral Chalybeate Springs in Philadelphia newspapers, but this time no mention of liquor as made. Instead, the ad noted “Accommodations will be provided as good as the country will afford, together with boarding.”18

“Byrnes Mineral Spring” as depicted on John Melish’s 1816 Map of Delaware County (Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission).

Burn’s wife of nearly 40 years, Margaret Green, died in February 1815. By August 1815, Burn was advertising the private sale of the whole 70-acre property. The advertisement gives perhaps the only detailed contemporary description of the property and mineral spring resort. The farm had a two-story frame and log house, a frame barn, and a stone springhouse. There was also the separate mineral spring with bath and summerhouses.19

Burn’s ad also included the following description:

The situation of this property is high and healthy, forming a lawn to the east and south-east, exhibiting a romantic and elegant scenery in view; on the west and north-west it is bordered by a beatiful [sic] shrubbery, with a number of rills and springs of water bursting forth from the hills, where serpentine walks, alcoves, and summer houses, might be established, which would much facilitate the delight and ease of the visitor. Nature has certainly done more for this spot than any other near the capital of the state. It only remains for art to be displayed with a degree of judgment, to make it a place of the greatest public resort of any now extant.20

While this description should be taken with a few grains of salt, it shows Burn’s vision and his desire to emulate some of the popular mineral spring resorts of the day, such as Harrowgate Gardens.21

Burn’s ad had noted that if the private sale of the property failed, it would be sold in a public sale on September 28, 1815. Neither sale happened however, as Burn had no legal right to actually sell the property.22

Ashmead writes in his 1884 history that six years after the second license petition (1818?) Isaac Burn’s 30-year-old son William Burn applied to the Court of Quarter Sessions for a tavern license so he could accommodate visitors to the springs. He too was rejected and no further applications were made.23

The Spring in Later Years

The spring on John Dunwoody’s property in 1848 (Courtesy of the Library of Congress).

There is little that is easily verifiable about Isaac Burn or the mineral chalybeate spring after about 1818. Isaac Burn remarried and appears to have died in July 1830 at age 77.24 In October 1831 his son William sold the 70-acre farm to Benjamin Hoopes of West Goshen for $4,074.25 John Dunwoody acquired the land with the mineral spring in 1838, and an 1848 map of Delaware County denotes the presence of a “Mineral Spring” on Dunwoody’s property. It is not noted on any later maps.26

In about 1921, historian F. H. Shelton visited the site of the spring. He was not impressed with what he found, writing “Whatever the Marple Spring of Health may have been… it is not now. It is a verifiable nothing. A visit these days discloses but the veriest rivulet, tasteless, and indistinguishable from any of a thousand similar small springs.” Shelton further noted that he was unable to find any traces of bathhouses or pavilions/summerhouses on the site.27

About fifteen years after Shelton’s visit, a Works Progress Administration (WPA) survey in the possession of the Delaware County Planning Department recorded the spring among the township’s historic sites. According to the survey, the spring was sometimes known as the Yellow Spring.28

Sign for Spring House Road in Radnor, near the location of Burn’s spring (Author’s photograph).

As a final post-script, a small stream, possibly fed by a spring, emerges from the ground on the front lawns of houses along Malin Road just before it crosses into Radnor Township. Just across the township line is a dead-end street aptly named Spring House Road. While the name is likely coincidence or refers to a different spring, it serves as a landmark for a resort that might have been.

A special thank you to Kate Clifford with the Delaware County Planning Department for making me aware of the 1816 Melish map and the 1936 WPA survey.

Originally posted November 27, 2020.
Updated November 30, 2020.

Citations

  1. Herb Fry, “Looking Back to Our Roots: The Legacy of Franklin L. Burns,” History Quarterly 34, no. 2 (April 1996): 62-63, Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society, https://www.tehistory.org/hqda/html/v34/v34n2p061.html.
  2. “Notice,” Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia), 19 February 1783, 3.
  3. Delaware County Deed Book S, 412-413; Gilbert Cope, Genealogy of Dunwoody and Hood Families and Collateral Branches (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Tribune Printing Co., 1899), 57-58.
  4. Joseph Burns v. Isaac Burns, November Term 1792, Box 1, Narratives, 1789-1847, 1853-1857, Delaware County Archives, Middletown, Pennsylvania.
  5. Joseph Burns v. Isaac Burns, January Term 1803, Box 5, Narratives, 1789-1847, 1853-1857, Delaware County Archives, Middletown, Pennsylvania; James Barnard v. Isaac Burns, January Term 1803, Box 5, Narratives, 1789-1847, 1853-1857, Delaware County Archives, Middletown, Pennsylvania.
  6. Petition of Isaac Burns for the Benefit of the Insolvent Law, 25 April 1803, Insolvent Debtors, 1748-1843, Delaware County Archives, Middletown, Pennsylvania; Cope, Genealogy of the Dunwoody and Hood Families, 58.
  7. John Rudolph, Environmental Land Use Planning and Management, second edition (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2012), 291-292; Harry B. Weiss and Howard R. Kemble, They Took to the Waters: The Forgotten Mineral Spring Resorts of New Jersey and Nearby Pennsylvania and Delaware (Trenton, New Jersey: Past Times Press, 1962), 10-11.
  8. Weiss and Kemble, They Took to the Waters, 11-13.
  9. Weiss and Kemble, They Took to the Waters, 14-15.
  10. Weiss and Kemble, They Took to the Waters, 21, 157.
  11. Weiss and Kemble, They Took to the Waters, 160-162.
  12. “Mineral Chalybeate Springs,” Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), 16 August 1810, 3; Therese O’Malley, “Summerhouse,” from History of Early American Landscape Design, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, 8 October 2020, https://heald.nga.gov/mediawiki/index.php/Summerhouse.
  13. “Mineral Chalybeate Springs,” Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, 16 August 1810, 3.
  14. Henry Graham Ashmead, History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: L. H. Everts & Co., 1884), 584.
  15. Ashmead, History of Delaware County, 584.
  16. F. H. Shelton, “Springs and Spas of Old-Time Philadelphians,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 47, no. 3 (July 1923): 232-233.
  17. Ashmead, History of Delaware County, 584.
  18. Freeman’s Journal and Philadelphia Mercantile Advertiser (Philadelphia), 26 June 1813, 3.
  19. Cope, Genealogy of the Dunwoody and Hood Families, 55-56; “To Be Sold, At Private Sale,” Aurora (Philadelphia), 30 August 1815, 1.
  20. “To Be Sold, At Private Sale,” Aurora, 30 August 1815, 1.
  21. Weiss and Kemble, They Took to the Waters, 161-163.
  22. “To Be Sold, At Private Sale,” Aurora, 30 August 1815, 1; Delaware County Deed Book S, 412-413.
  23. Ashmead, History of Delaware County, 584.
  24. Cope, Genealogy of the Dunwoody and Hood Families, 55; Winfield Scott Garner, ed., Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Chester County, Pennsylvania (Richmond, Indiana: Gresham Publishing Company, 1893), 788.
  25. Delaware County Deed Book S, 412-413.
  26. Delaware County Deed Book S, 693-694; Delaware County Deed Book U, 231-232; Joshua W. Ash, Map of Delaware County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Robert P. Smith, 1848).
  27. Shelton, “Springs and Spas,” 233.
  28. Kate J. Clifford, email to author, November 30, 2020.

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