Chatham Park

The history of Chatham Park reflects the history of post-World War II America: the flight from the cities, the genesis of the single unit family, the housing of returning G.I.s, and the creation of the new suburban community. Life in the new suburban, American single-family home was to change the culture of a nation.

In the first quarter of the 20th century what would become Chatham Park made the transition from farmland to suburban place of leisure. After the First World War  in 1925 The Pennsylvania Railroad Golf Club established their course on 109 acres bounded by Earlington Road, Manoa Road and City Line.  After the Second World War this property was sold in 1943 to Warner West Corporation. The Warner West Corporation developed Chatham Park.

Early Farms

​The area that would become Chatham Park remained farm country well into the 20th century. The earliest maps of Harford illustrate two of the oldest streets, today’s Mill Road and Manoa Road. Each road’s dog leg turns indicate not only their present location but their distinguished pattern. Each road rises from Karakung Creek up to the ridge of today’s Darby Road (then the Coopertown Road.) The irregular pattern results from a horse or mule drawn wagon to zig-zag its way up a steep hill.

The Historic Grange
​https://thegrangeestate.org/

Under William Penn the area was settled by Henry Lewis who acquired the land from Lewis David who made the original contract homesteads in the new Welsh Barony. Henry Lewis built what is now called the Grange Estate. Lewis called his home Maen-Coch (Red Stone) after the place in Pembrokeshire Wales.​ The map below identifies The Grange as Clifton Hall.
https://www.loc.gov/resource/hhh.pa3015.photos/?sp=6   
https://historicplacenames.rcahmw.gov.uk/placenames/recordedname/651aba6a-2e22-4ff0-a5aa-0cf8f3e2fcd3

Following the War of Independence the early 19th century saw the advent of new settlers to Haverford Township.

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1848 Ash Map 

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The 1848 Ash Map shows that the area which would become Llanerch, the lower section, and later, Chatham Park, as the farms of Samuel Davis, J.R. Eckfeldt and J. Hibbard.  These families will continue into the early part of the 20th century. The map also indicates with a small dot and the notation 6.M the six miles to Philadelphia stone marker that still stands outside the Llanerch Fire Company. We find the stone again on the 1902 map.

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 The 1902 Baist map shows the last farms before the properties were sold to the railroad. The six mile stone appears again on this map as it did in 1848. Darby Road still carried the name "Coopertown Road."  

The Eckfeldts and the Ashursts

 The 1860 Census outlines the successful family. The Ashursts live at The Grange. The father is listed as a farmer. The son, John jr. is , at 21, a physician. The household is most indicative of the social structure or the time. John W. Johnson, a Black man is the coachman. Three of the house servants are Irish immigrant women.

The 1870 census and newspaper accounts of the time tell us that the Eckfeldts were also a most prosperous and notable family: three generations who worked at the Philadelphia Mint. In this family as well, the farm laborers are Irish immigrants.

Feb.19, 1898

By 1908 most of the farms are gone.  Two development companies own the farmland just above Llanerch, The Manor Real Estate Cpmpany and the Homestead Real Estate Company.  Manor Real Estate will develop Brookline which, as shown on the map, is planned but not developed.  Brookline will not emerge until around 1925. The map also shows the short-lived Beechwood Amusement Park and the planned Beechwood Community. Directly opposite the amusement park is the former Leedom-Dickinson Mansion, now re-named Harford Hall, and The Grange as owned by Homestead Realty. 

In 1929 the portions of Manor Real Estate are conveyed to the Pennsylvania Railroad for a golf course.

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1938 - Chatham Village

May 21, 1939

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1940 Earlington Road and the Pennsylvania Golf Course.
​ The Grange at the bottom right.

From 1930 
​The Pennsylvania Golf Course

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Earlington Park Golf Course 1948

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Homes for the returning GI

​Following World War II, the returning G.I.s often found themselves without a place to live, a place to raise a family. Housing shortages embarrassed the government but not always enough to cause immediate action. The ability of the government to accommodate those who had fought in the war became a point of international competition with the Soviet Union. Despite shortages the United States made every attempt that things in this country were still better than those abroad. 

Feb 25, 1946

March 17, 1950

Even Hollywood made its pitch for the homeless G.I. The humorous Christmas Holiday film “It Happened on Fifth Avenue” depicts a warm-hearted attempt of homeless veterans to create a new community for America' new families.

The returning veteran and his young family had a new American Dream.  Like those who settled the country he and his family were looking for clean, open, green spaces, small though those places may be. 

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​The creation of Chatham Park as a development designed for the veteran and his family offered a most excellent solution: an individual home, a minimal down payment, and a planned community with its own school. On March 25, 1950 the following announcement appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer. A new idea had come to life, "Veterans - No Cash: The Luxurious Detached Home You've Been Waiting For."

​The layout of Chatham Park expressed a new idea in neighborhood planning. The checkerboard symmetrical street grid of earlier communities had no place here. Chatham Park’s designers laid out its streets in sinuous curves and turns. Homes moving gracefully around each bend replaced the regimented blocks of the city. Home owners lived in a country village setting. Suburbia.

The plan of the Chatham Park house is that of a city row home turned broad side out. The depth of the house, which in a row home would be the front,  is exactly "one perch," eighteen steps, one of the oldest English measurements for a row home.

Chatham Park School  (Date of construction needed.)

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