Rose Valley Map
Rose Valley is a small but historic borough in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. Its area is 0.7 square miles (1.8 km²) and the population was 944 at the 2000 census. It was settled by Quaker farmers in 1682, and later water mills along Ridley Creek drove manufacturing in the nineteenth century. In 1901 Rose Valley was founded as an Arts and Crafts community by architect Will Price, who bought 80 acres (320,000 m2) of land around the former Rose Valley textile mill. Price, a follower of the Henry George's economics was also a co-founder of Arden, Delaware, where he tried to create a single-tax utopian community. Nevertheless the single-tax ideal was never implemented in Rose Valley and crafts works soon foundered, leaving a legacy of impressive architecture, a preserved landscape, and the a regional theatre, the Hedgerow Theatre (founded in 1923), as well as an artistic community that includes writers, painters, and architects. As a former mayor said, "Rose Valley is an island of non-conformity." The Rose Valley Historic District, covering essentially all of the borough, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010.
Native Americans of the Leni Lenape or Delaware tribe lived in the area when Europeans began arriving. A major trade route, the Great Minquas Path, passed though the site of the present borough, along Long Point, a hairpin turn in Ridley Creek, and then across the creek and through the center of the borough. Furs were carried along the path from Native Americans on the Susquehanna River to European traders on the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers. Soon after William Penn received his charter for the Colony of Pennsylvania, three brothers, Thomas, Robert, and Randall Vernon received land grants from Penn to settle over 900 acres in the present borough of Rose Valley and Nether Providence Township. The brothers arrived in Pennsylvania in 1682 and began farming the area, about 4 miles north of Chester, which was then the largest settlement in the colony. Though the brothers purchased their land in 1681 while still in London, the land was not surveyed and patents were not granted for the land until years, perhaps decades, later. The Providence Great Road (now PA 252), just to the north of the borough, was laid out in the 1680s, and Brookhaven Road, on the borough's eastern boundary was laid out in 1705.
Randall Vernon's house was built before 1700, and still stands. Robert Vernon may have built the house known as the "Bishop White House" about 1695. The name of the house comes from its use by the family of Bishop William White during the yellow fever epidemic of 1793 in Philadelphia. Though the Bishop visited the house, he generally stayed in Philadelphia in 1793. Will Price modified this house after 1900, adding a stone porch and red tile roof. The Vernon families continued living in the area into the nineteenth century. The American Revolution split family members, who served as soldiers on both the American and British sides.
Nearby cities include Brookhaven, Media, Narberth, Berwyn, Devon.