Concordville
The Concordville Historic District [1] was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. Portions of the text, below, were adapted from a copy of the original nomination document.
Concordville occupied a strategic location at the intersection of the road from Chester and the road which ran from Philadelphia to Baltimore. For some reason, however, the town never really grew. The Historic District includes most of the buildings which existed in Concordville prior to 1831. According to Ashmead: " Except for a few dwellings clustered about the Friends Meeting House at this point, there was no conspicuous settlement until 1831, when John Way was licensed to keep a public house there, and in the next year a mail station was established and known as the Concordville Post Office." Additional houses grew up beside the older complex. In 1873-74 a two story public school was built at Concordville. Maplewood Institute, "a seminary for learning," received its charter in 1870. While contributing cultural and educational life of the village, neither is included in the Historic District; the public school because modern development separates it from the outlined district; Maplewood Institute because, although it has contributed to the educational life of the community, its buildings are not architecturally distinctive enough to warrant their inclusion.
The Historic District is an excellent complex architecturally. Two buildings are architecturally quite outstanding – the Concord Friends Meeting House and the Nicholas Newlin House. The Meeting House, built in 1728, and enlarged in 1788, was long a focal point of community life. The sixth Meeting established in Delaware County, it played a significant role in the religious life of the community for many township residents attended the Meeting here. Furthermore the Friends considered education quite important and the Meeting House was used as a school as well as for religious purposes during the Nineteenth Century. In the first half of the Nineteenth Century the Meeting split into two factions. The Orthodox congregation constructed a building of their own. The two congregations are one again and the Orthodox Meeting building is now used by the grange.
In addition to the rich religious history which the Concordville Historic District reflects, it once was the focal point for some local and even interstate commerce. Stages ran through the village regularly. Samuel Trimble plied his trade of hatter in the Trimble House around the time of 1800. At the turn of the Nineteenth Century, the 1856 Brick House served as an apothecary shop with Dr. Darlington living across the street in the Trimble House. The significance of the Concordville Historic District is not so much in what the people who dwelt in the houses did, but rather in the cluster of buildings themselves. The Concord Meeting House, Nathaniel Newlin House, which has already been included on the National Register of Historic Places, and the Newlin Tenant House are good examples of Eighteenth Century Southeastern Pennsylvania architecture. The Samuel Trimble House shows the extensive alterations and additions which the Nineteenth Century made to an Eighteenth Century house to the point that today, we consider it more representative of that century than of the earlier era. The Norris J. Scott House and the 1856 Brick House are examples of mid-Nineteenth Century architecture and the impact of Victorianism on the rural environment. As a complex it is significant, although several of the buildings can stand on their own merits. Together, they make a unique and pleasing complex.
- Adapted from: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Concordville Historic District, nomination document, 1972, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.
Nearby Neighborhoods
Street Names
Baltimore Pike • Concord Road • Route 1
