Did You Know? Early Brandywine River Valley Wealth

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This house and outbuildings in West Bradford Township is a well preserved example of the brick and stone homes built by English settlers to Brandywine Valley in the 1700's. (Image via Chester County Planning Commission)

The Brandywine River Valley, with its rich farmland and over 120 grist, flour and steel mills, generated so much wealth in colonial Pennsylvania, industrious farmers and mill owners went on a home building spree of sorts.

But unlike previous Finnish or Swede settler’s log cabins, few if any exist today, English settlers built homes of stone and brick designed to endure.

“Brave brick houses,” William Penn called them.

And endure they did! So many homes built by Quaker settlers in those early years survive today, that except for Philadelphia, Chester County has more homes, more than 300 in all, on the National Register of Historic Places than any other county in Pennsylvania.

Whether you live in one of the 300 or so stone or brick homes built by English Settlers in the 1700’s or in one of the county’s countless suburban developments, the Brandywine remains a beautiful recreational and environmental sanctuary that deserves Pennsylvania’s 2017 River of the Year award!

Help the Brandywine win that distinction by casting your vote now!

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