In 1860, Newtown Township was largely a farming community, full of Quaker descendants of Welsh Quakers who bought their original farms from William Penn and moved here in the late 1600’s. The census for that year shows 841 people in Newtown, most living on farms spread out throughout the township. But in one small corner of the Township, the census taker found a veritable beehive of activity: more than 100 men, women and children living along the banks of the Darby Creek, skilled weavers and crafts people, many recent immigrants from England and Ireland, working at several textile mills turning the wool from local sheep in woolen blankets and other goods that were sent throughout the country.
Today, those mills are ruins along the creek, but one of the mill workers homes, and a museum of local history, can still be found along the banks of the Darby Creek in Newtown, open to the public each Saturday in July and August from 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. Please take advantage of this opportunity to tour the museum and walk in the steps of those early millworkers.
The Newtown Square Historical Preservation Society opens the 1742 Square Tavern at Rt. 252 and Goshen Road, and the 1828 Paper Mill House and Museum, at St. David’s Road and Paper Mill Road, each July and August on Saturdays from 1-4:00 p.m. For more information, and to verify openings on a particular date, please check our website athttp://www.historicnewtownsquare.org/.
