This very rare postcard was made by H. H. Battles of Newtown Square. After the Sycamore Mill fire in 1901 he bought the property and attempted to turn the village into an Arts and Crafts community. He issued a series of cards to advertise his intent. His idea failed and the property was bought by the Riddle/Jeffords families and became the Walter Jeffords Estate and then Ridley Creek State Park. The above house still stands on the walking path above the parking lot.
THE DESERTED VILLAGE OF SYCAMORE MILLS
Ancient Bridge House is Over Grown with Wild Roses
Old Union Library Building Still Stands
“Sweet
Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,
Where
health and plenty cheered the laboring swain
Sunk
are thy bowers, in shapeless ruin all,
And
the long grass o’ertops the moldering wall.”
Nestling
in the foot hills of Delaware County, almost within reach of the busy hum of
the city, peacefully sleeping, with no sound to disturb its slumbers but the
whispering of the winds in the tops of the tall buttonwood trees, and the swirl
of the falling water of Ridley Creek, lies Sycamore Mills – just such a village
as Goldsmith pictured in his immortal lines.
Here are the deserted walks, the grass-grown roadways, the ruined mill
and the moldering walls. Here, is the
Hawthorne bush with “seats beneath the shade, for talking age and whispering
lovers made,” and the never falling brook and forsaken flower garden with all
the other faded beauties which Goldsmith describes.
A half
hour’s journey on the Pennsylvania Railroad, followed by another half hour
spent in driving over the picturesque roadways of Delaware County brings one to
the long covered bridge, still in excellent repair, which leads to Sycamore
Mills. As one crosses the bridge and
enters the once prosperous hamlet, the sense of solitude and stillness is so
intense as to fill one’s very being with a sensation of awe, and the dozen or
more little houses which formed the community, together with the library and
mill, stand like sleeping monuments of a forgotten past.
Occasionally
a rabbit, bold, because he knows not the fear of man whom he seldom sees,
scurries through the dead leaves or a red fox seeking a short cut to his lair,
crosses the grassy roadway, the noises of their scuffling waking the drowsy
birds and for a moment Sycamore Mills is filled with sound; then all is silent
once more.
Over,
above and into the half open windows of the little stone houses the roses climb
and twine themselves about the remnants of furniture, which are still to be
found in several of the once comfortable homes.
Here and there a “window box, still containing vestiges of such
old-fashioned flowers as muck or Canterbury bells, or mourning bride, strikes
the eye. Now a worn pump which no longer
even wheezes is discovered, or a pottery vase on a broken mantle shelf over a
huge dusty fireplace where bats have dwelt for years. All tell their own sad little tales of
desolation. In the background the forest
of stately button woods and lowering black oaks screens the forsaken little
village from the rude gaze of the passerby, and the comforting hills shield it
from the prying eyes of the curious.
RUINS OF
OLD MILL – Beside the limpid Ridley Creek still stands the ruin of the old
mill, which once furnished occupation for the departed inhabitants of this
almost forgotten village. Once the snug
little houses teemed with life, romance held sway, tragedies were enacted, and
the simple and blissfully ignorant inhabitants of the peaceful valley lived
their lives and played their parts in the great scheme of things, while the
great march of progress went on unheeded.
It was a
prosperous little community, this Sycamore Mills or as it was at one time
known, Bishop’s Mills, and earlier still Upper Providence. The houses, even those which are in ruins,
show evidences of this, and with their substantial stone work, blackened oak
ceilings, and great fireplaces must have made comfortable homes.
Long
ago, even as far back as the days of William Penn, does the history of Sycamore
Mills, extend. For that great man
himself “Did grant on the 24th of June 1680 to James Swaffer, 500
acres of land in Providence,” and later said James Swaffer in turn deeded this
land to Jeremiah Collet who transferred it to someone else, and then it passed
through various hands until at last in 1717 John Edge, to whom the property had
descended, formed a co-partnership with Jacob Edge and Henry Miller and erected
the mill whose gray ruin yet stands beside the creek. From that date until 1901, when the original
mill with its numerous additions was destroyed by fire, it changed hands a
number of times and many are the good old Philadelphia names which are
inscribed on the yellowed and worm-eaten old documents telling of the sales and
transfers. The Yarnalls, the Biddles,
the Coxes, the Caldwells and the Lewis's, all at one time or another owned or leased
Sycamore Mill. And furthermore, every
farmer in the neighborhood, it appeared, might rent the mill from its owners
for his personal use, and take his grain there and grind it to his own liking,
without giving thanks or pay to anyone.
Thus the
mill itself played a conspicuous part in the history of the village. On its walls hung the big iron key of the
library for the use of farmers who might desire to spend their time in reading
while their grist was being ground. The
mill was the chief means of livelihood for many years to the villagers,
although the farmers about the country lived exceedingly well on the proceeds
of their lands.
STORY TO
ITSELF – The library deserves a story to itself, as it still stands in fine
repair, almost unchanged. The date of
its building, 1812 still plainly visible on a plate adjacent to the old time
wooden door. Here the weekly newspapers
were kept for the good of the community, and quaint almanacs and other books of
reference, with some pious tales for Sunday afternoon reading, and cook books
and novels in three volumes for matrons and maidens sentimentally inclined. These old volumes remained on the shelves of
the library for many years after the village was deserted, and only the bats
and owls which finally found their way through broken windows, can tell of the
treasures of book lore which crumbled and faded there.
The year
1813 must have been a notable one for the little community, for then a nail
factory was erected (bringing in additional sources of revenue to the
villagers), and was soon followed by a blacksmith shop.
Who can
say just why the lovely spot was forsaken?
There are various conjectures advanced among the oldest inhabitants of
Media. Some say that it was due to the
fact that in 1843 the heretofore peace-abiding little creek rose and swelled
and went roaring through the place, leaving a trail of death and devastation
behind it, causing so much sorrow and terror that this year has always been
remembered in Delaware County as the season of the great flood. It was in this flood that Mrs. Rachel Green,
the teacher, or, as she was termed then, the preceptors of the little village
school, largely escaped with her life, while many of the villagers were drowned
and their property destroyed. Others
attribute the desertion of Sycamore Mills to the fact that sometime early in
the nineteenth century a saw mill was erected in close proximity to the grist
mill, and that when this occurred the first feeling of entity and strife arose
in the hamlet. “You see,” they say,
“there was not always the water necessary to run two mills. Sometimes the creek went nearly dry, and as
there was an arrangement between the owners of the two mills that when the
grist mill was short of water the saw mill was to stand idle, it was to be
expected that considerable ill-feeling would be aroused at times.” And so, whether it was because of the freshet
or the quarrels arising from the installation of a second mill, no one knows,
but the fact remains that the village was abandoned and so fell into a state of
somnolence and decay.
DAMAGED
BY FLOOD – Years passed by the houses and other buildings crumbled, and the
roadways became overgrown with weeds and grass.
Vines and shrubbery choked the entrance to the dwellings. The old bridge built in 1763, was almost
entirely washed away in the flood of 1843, leaving only the span remaining in
place, supported by the tottering walls.
Only the birds and the squirrels now inhabit it. Occasionally a cow, straying from the herd,
wandered into the green surrounding woodland, and once year the collector of
the county taxes passed through to assure himself that no bold squatter had settled
there without paying due tribute to the ownership. Other villages sprang into existence in
Delaware County and the little hamlet almost passed from memory.
RECONSTRUCTION
PERIOD – And then one day, in the hottest part of an extremely hot summer, a
number of men, wearied with turmoil of the city and longing for simple,
primitive things, discovered this little, deserted recondite village in the
hills, and decided to make of it a settlement not unlike that founded by Elbert
Hubbard at East Aurora. This was in
1907, 190 years after the building of the mill.
The
prime mover in the enterprise was H.H. Battle of Newtown Township, who was
aided by E.S. Lewis of Philadelphia.
These men, enthusiastic in their admiration for the beautiful spot, so
full of historic and poetic associations, earnestly went to work to found an
arts and crafts community. Elbert
Hubbard, who is a close friend of Mr. Battle’s
Visited the spot and suggested several improvements. The snug little stone houses were restored,
roads rebuilt, the dam mended and a new bridge erected. The Union Library was opened and the
collection of books, among which were discovered a number of valuable works,
together with some unique stuffed birds, foxes, squirrels and other animals,
was removed to the Institute of Science in Media and the library transformed
into a laboratory for the carrying on of the work of the new community.
The old
blacksmith shop was remodeled and there the workers in the now settlement
developed their ideas in basketry and pottery.
A piece of meadowland was planted in basket willows and the making of
craftsman baskets for holding plants and flowers became a successful
enterprises. Artists and literary men
from all parts of the state, hearing of the quiet, peaceful little nook, were
attracted there, and soon the little stone houses flourished once more; the
window boxes were filled, the fallen rose trellises raised and the drooping
blossoms trained to cover the old gray walls.
Begonias, adjoining the quaint little structures, were built, vases and
urns of pottery added beauty to the landscape and for a time Sycamore Mills
seemed once more to have recognition as a home of men.
But only
for a brief space, however, for within a few years the homes were again
deserted, the trellises had fallen and the roses trailed unnoticed over the
gateways and fences. The laboratory was
abandoned, the shops closed, and Sycamore Mills was once more left to the mercy
of the red foxes, the owls, the bats and an occasional band of wandering gypsies.
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