There is a lot more to learn about the area where James Willcox's paper mill was located! The area mentioned in historical documents like tax recors is Upper Providence. But if I am following the succession of mills correctly, it is actually closer to Media and Rose Valley and might have been what became known as Middle Mills, the latest and last purchaser being Samuel Bancroft. Samuel also owned Upper Mills, which is in present day Rose Valley Borough. I stumbled across a wedding venue that is at the Old Mill (Bancroft's Upper Mill), and started putting two and two together.
Anyway, in October 2020, this barn and house site went up for sale for $1,199,000. It's history states that is Todmorden Hall, home and farm of Samuel Bancroft. So the history of it is really cool to read.
Once part of a farmstead that included several nearby historic houses, this 1872 barn and its companion residence form a gracious estate set amid lush gardens.
Sandy Smith, Home and Real Estate Editor for Philly Mag, wrote:
Today we offer you a magical duo: a historic barn and a modern house in one of the region’s most distinctive communities. The community is Rose Valley, the Delaware County borough that began as a settlement around mills on Ridley Creek and blossomed into an early-20th-century utopian community. The barn and the house site were once part of Todmorden Farm, one of the earliest parcels of land to be settled in what is now Rose Valley.
Todmorden’s history stretches back to 1787, when one Jacob Benninghoove built the original section of the house known as Todmorden Hall on land that had been granted to Randal Vernon by William Penn in 1681. The land had long since passed out of the Vernon family’s hands by 1787; Benninghoove had leased it from one Alexander Willcocks (NOT RELATED to our James Willcox) and bought the land outright by 1798. The house, which sits across Todmorden Lane from this property, sat on the highest point of land from here to the Atlantic, some 250 feet above sea level.
Todmorden Hall was enlarged over the decades by a series of owners. In the years before the Civil War, its then-owner fitted it to accommodate slaves seeking freedom via the Underground Railroad. And in 1872, the bridge barn you see above was built. The barn was one of two that originally sat on this site. The second wooden barn eventually fell into ruin, but part of its foundation wall survives.
In the history of Rose Valley on www.rosevalleyborough.org, it is further explained:
Rose Valley was included in land grants by William Penn in 1681 to three Vernon brothers - Thomas, Robert and Randal - while they were still in England. They all arrived here the following year. Robert's grant was confirmed by patent in 1684, Thomas's in 1702 and Randal's in 1711. The three brothers' lands were contiguous, and each had considerable frontage on the east side of Ridley Creek. Randal Vernon built his home on what is now Rabbit Run, and that home still stands. The part of Rose Valley we know as Todmorden was also part of Randal Vernon's grant, but it was not until 1831 when Samuel Bancroft bought the farm and mill on that site that the house was called Todmorden - a name which is said to mean "Death of the Fox" or "End of the Hunt." Robert Vernon's home may have been the three-story stone house on Old Mill Lane, now known as the Bishop White House, getting that name from William White who sent his family here from Philadelphia during an epidemic of yellow fever in 1793.
I'll be reading more here!
https://www.phillymag.com/property/2020/10/07/rose-valley-todmorden-barn-and-house-for-sale/
http://www.rosevalleyborough.org/rose-valley-history/
https://theoldmillrosevalley.com/our-history-1
https://www.phillymag.com/property/2020/02/04/house-for-sale-rose-valley-walton-cottage-forge/
https://rosevalleymuseum.org/history/the-artists/1901-1911/herbert-walton/#:~:text=Herbert%20Lightfoot%20Walton%20%281885-1938%29%20was%20a%20versatile%20artist.,Norton%20and%20his%20father%20was%20Charles%20Joseph%20Walton.
https://rosevalleymuseum.org/history/
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