Early commerce

Earlier in this history was the story of the mills which served the farmer.  But there was also a need for other supplies.  In 1853, the Locust Grove store was advertising “store goods at public sale,” featuring dry goods, groceries, queensware and hardware.  Household and kitchen furniture were available there, as well as two fat shoats, a load of hay, corn fodder, post and rails, farming utensils, and “one York wagon in good repair.”

The hospitality industry was not overlooked.  A hotel called originally the West Bradford Hotel was built sometime between 1784 and 1792 at the intersection of State Road (now Route 842) and Northbrook Road. After the township was formed, it became the Pocopson Inn (also referred to as the Pocopson Hotel).  It was described as “a two-story stone building with every convenience attached”; an impressive structure  made of locally quarried brownstone that was nicknamed “The Stone Hotel.”

John Lee Pierce of Pocopson was granted a tavern license by the Court of Quarter Sessions in 1850. Later, William B. Hickman had the tavern license

Getting and keeping a license to operate a tavern was not automatic. The “character” of the applicant was a factor in granting a petition to open and operate a tavern, and the applicant had to get his neighbors to agree that he was a “person of good repute for honesty and temperance.”

We are not sure exactly what kind of business clients this inn attracted. Tavern historian Julius F. Sachse describes a strict division between certain types of taverns. Those which attracted drovers were at the low end of the scale, because drovers shepherded turkeys, sheep or cattle to market, disrupting traffic on the roads and causing billowing dust clouds. This would seem to be the clientele of the Pocopson Inn, which was at one time termed “one of West Bradford’s largest drover establishments.” But at another time, perhaps later in the 1800’s, the inn was highlighted as a “headquarters for politicians and for many a visiting candidate.”

In any case, a fire in the fall of 1900 destroyed much of the building, and with it the business. This may have been a reflection of a larger passing, for one newspaper report lamented, “The old-fashioned, clean, well-kept country tavern in Chester County has disappeared to a large extent.  The sanded floor, cheery, airy apartment in summer and the glowing wood fire within the spacious fireplace in winter are not found nearly so often as they used to be by the way-worn traveler.”

There were smaller businesses.  John Aitken published a “Notice to Manufacturers and Farmers” that he had established the Pocopson Works, near the Pocopson Bridge, to “carry on Machine Making in all its various branches, such as … steam engines, pumps, hydraulic rams, etc.”  Charles Golden, of Locust Grove, started a “broom manufactury,”  as did Charles Greenfield, near Haines’ Mill. W.S. Keenan was a blacksmith at Northbrook;  he boasted that he had shod as many as 45 horses in three days.  H. Osborne built a slaughterhouse for swine butchering, and Malin Brown built a 25X18-foot slaughterhouse at his home. The Thorne Fence Company was in Northbrook, and the Brandywine Fence Company was in Wawaset.  A brick-firing kiln was erected at Pocopson Station by Mitchell Painter.  I.H. Baily established the Northbrook Lumber and Coal Yard, which also stocked wheat and bran for sale.  Douglas & Company set up a tobacco-packaging operation on Eusebeus Baily’s land.

Frank Hoopes, near Wawaset, chose the interesting business of raising skunks, proposing to sell the hides of the animals, as well as the oil from their bodies, to be used in “medicinal preparations.”  Within a year, Pusey Wilkinson took over the business, but it did not prove successful.  And then somebody either stole all the skunks or simply turned them loose.

There were some attempts to develop the other resources within the township.  Iron ore was found on Christopher H. Webb’s farm in 1851. A deposit of corundum was found and tested.  Feldspar was found near Northbrook; granite was discovered on some property around Wawaset Station, and the West Chester Street Railway was quarrying stone to be crushed and used for ballast.

There even was an auto-driving school set up in Pocopson.  But the auto of the time proved too much to handle, at least for one driver.  He did all right on the first straightaway, but then he tried to slow down by putting the auto in reverse.  It tore backwards through a fence, while the driver was yelling “Whoa! Whoa!  Ding bust you, whoa!, I say.” 

I expect to bring the three employers below more up to date.