This postcard from c.1910 shows guest houses on W. Rose Valley Rd. These houses were originally built for mill workers. These buildings still stand.
NOTE: The story goes Rose Valley was originally known as "Rogues Valley" because of all the mill failures. A mill owner changed the name to make the place more likable. The boro is named for the mills and ruins still exist. This years is mill year in Delaware Co. there will be lectures, talks and articles on old Delaware Co. Mills.
ROSE VALLEY MILLS
‘ROSE VALLEY MILLS,’
LOCATED ON Ridley Creek in Nether Providence, are worthy of prominent mention
among the recent improvements of our county.
The mill is in charge of Antrim Osborne & Son, the father being the
proprietor and financial partner, the son the general partner. All the buildings of Rose Valley have been
erected since 1862. In that year the
mill was erected on the site of Park Shea’s old paper mill. It is a stone house 30 by 40 feet, with dry,
dye, and other houses attached. It runs
60 looms, and turns off from 50,000 to 55,000 yards per month of a light and
good grade of cotton jeans. Two boilers
are used, one a tubular, the other plain, with a 30 horse power capacity; these
do the dyeing of and heat the mill. The
entire machinery is now run by a new double acting turbine wheel, made by James
Leffell & Company, of Springfield, Ohio.
This wheel is 40 inches in diameter; the waterfall is about 12 feet, the
wheel using about half the creek. It
gives much better speed and greater regularity than the overshot wheel it displaced,
has been running about two weeks, and is considered a complete success. It was put in by Eber Rigby, the carpenter
regularly employed by the firm.
Everything in and about the mill is in the best of order, and we believe
that in cleanliness it will compare favorably with any in the county or
state. Between fifty and sixty
operatives and workmen are employed. The
machinery was all newly put up in 1862, but the last year displaced about
one-third of it with yet later improvements.
It was all made by Jenks, of Bridesburg, well known to our
manufacturers. The firm is about to add
a new dry house, 25 by 40 feet, two stories high; and contemplate the erection
of twelve new houses for the use of the operatives, next spring and
summer. The homestead dwelling is of
stone, upon a high hill near the mill, 38 feet front by 33 feet deep with
kitchen, 28 by 16 feet. In front is a
fine lawn planted with ornamental trees and shrubbery. Water is forced to it by a wheel, a distance
of 500 feet from a spring of CHALYBEATE – water impregnated with particles of
iron – healthy and excellent taste. The
barn is a very fine structure 56 by 50 feet; with a wagon shed and carriage
house attached 51 feet long – ice house underneath. On the opposite hill has just been completed
a handsome frame dwelling, the property of William H. Osborne, and, we presume,
to be occupied by him, when ‘in the dim distant future,’ he persuades the
companionship of the one of the gentler six.
Rose Valley can boast over a dozen buildings beside the mill, all
erected during and since the year 1862 by Antrim Osborn, the entire work being
under the charge of Eber Rigby, a carpenter and mechanic of the first
class. It is said of him that in all
this work, as well as in the erection and repair of the mill, mansion, &c.,
he has yet to make the first mistake.
His is a record that any man should be proud of. The Valley and its surroundings will someday
be picturesque and beautiful. The Osborne’s
have only fairly ‘broke ground’ in the way of improvement and a few years
continuance in the way they have begun will make it as fine a spot as any of
which our county can boast. The hill
bordering the eastern side of the valley was only recently a thick wood; it is
now a clearing, and will doubtless soon bear the same marks of thrift and
improvement as the one opposite, containing the homestead, &c. Four years have done much for Rose Valley
under the direction of men who take pride in their work, and who seem to be
winning the success which their skill and enterprise deserve.
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