Robert W. Caldwell, Pocopson School Board Member

Robert W. Caldwell was born about 1822. Caldwell began his career as a farmer and shipped produce to Philadelphia markets by rail from West Chester. In 1860, he purchased a Locust Grove Village general store at sheriff’s sale. Robert Caldwell, or his children, ran this store from 1860 through 1930. Robert Caldwell’s occupations included farmer, market man, shopkeeper, and postmaster. His vocations included: assessor and collector of taxes for Pocopson; director and treasurer of the Pocopson School Board; and delegate to the first Republican County Convention in 1855. Robert and his wife raised eight children. Through their industry and enterprise, they became one of the eminent families in the Village.[1] Robert died at the age of 95 in 1917.

Robert W. Caldwell served three terms on the Pocopson Township School Board. In April of 1869, Caldwell was appointed to the Board to complete the term vacated by Thomas W. Parker. In June of the same year, he was elected for a three-year term. The other officers were: George Martin, President; Jacob Trimble, Treasurer; and Henry Walter, Secretary. In July of 1870, Robert Caldwell was appointed, along with George Martin and Matlack to supervise the “building” of the Locust Grove Schoolhouse. In 1871, he took on the job of collecting taxes in Pocopson. In 1872, Caldwell was re-elected to the school board, this time acting as treasurer. Caldwell’s second term on the board ended in 1875. In 1899, Robert Caldwell was again elected to the Board and assumed the job of secretary in 1901. In the earlier years, the board often met at the Locust Grove Schoolhouse. During the years, 1901 through 1903, the school board most often met at Caldwell’s home.

Throughout the years of Caldwell’s involvement with the School and School Board (1869 through 1903), likely because of his occupation of merchant, he was often asked to procure supplies for the Locust Grove Schoolhouse and other Pocopson schools. The board minutes mention him providing or procuring: tables and chairs; cube blocks and numeral frame; ink, crayons, glass, and broom and brush; cupboard for books to be locked in; and “sundries.”

Robert Caldwell was the first and only postmaster of the Corinne Post Office near the Locust Grove Schoolhouse. The Post Office was established February 1889 and closed July 1915. Robert Caldwell was a Pocopson delegate to the Republican nominating convention;[2] Robert Caldwell himself recollected in 1910, for the West Chester Local Daily News, how he went to the Locust Grove School in 1855 to the primary election when the Republican Party was born.

A resident’s recollection, published by the Pocopson Historical Committee states:

The store was in the front; they lived in the back part of the house. There were hitching rails in the front for the horses and a watering trough for the animals. The store stocked bolts of cloth, molasses in barrels, and lidded-bins for flour, sugar, beans and various dried foods. There were saws axes, guns, pistols, farm tools, chains, kerosene lamps, and general hardware. Treats for kids were in the glass jars—big six-inch sugar cookies and assorted candies, that all sold for a penny a piece.

Son Joseph owned Hickory Hill Farm in North Pocopson with his wife Annie. Their only child, Robert died of scarlet fever in 1885. Robert W. Caldwell’s son Franklin, after having an accident on his farm, moved to Deadwood City, Colorado in 1883 and became a butcher. Harry was the youngest son. He helped to give the post office its name, Corinne. Daughters Emily, Anna, and Sara never married. Emily worked as housekeeper for her dad for many years. By 1912, when Robert was 90, he turned over the store to Anna and Sara. Robert W. Caldwell died at the age of 95 in 1917. In February 1930, Sara died, and Anna and Harry decided to close the old store. Anna then lived alone in the house in which she had grown up, but died later in 1930 from burns suffered during a fire in their home. The last surviving Caldwell of Locust Grove, Harry, died in 1940, and then the property went to a niece in Wisconsin, who sold it to the Neide family.