The township of Upper Oxford was originally part of a grant of 30,000 acres encompassing present-day Londonderry and Penn Townships, which William Penn established in 1682. Sir John Fagg was the trustee for Penn's first wife and his children, and the property was divided with 5000 acres going to Letitia, Penn's daughter, and another 5000 acres going to William Penn,Jr. Since none of this land was developed by Penn's children due to its distance from Philadelphia, it was further subdivided. However, some of the subsequent settlers failed for one reason or another to receive title to the land, with the result that some present-day purchasers found themselves having to pay the fee plus the accumulated interest. Fortunately, despite the intervening years, the sum was still modest.
Oxford Township was separated from Londonderry on November 26, 1754, and a further division split the area into Lower and Upper Oxford townships in 1797, with one branch of the Elk serving as the boundary between the municipalities. The East Branch already formed the boundary with Penn Township, while the Octoraro served as the dividing line between the township and Lancaster County.
It was only natural that communities grew up along these highways, especially at the crossroads where often there would be a tavern for the comfort of the travelers and their horses and oxen. Such settlements in Upper Oxford were Russellville, Forestville, Homeville, and Edenton.
Russellville grew up at the junction of Limestone Road and Newport Road with a tavern as early as 1737. In 1747 John White received title to the land encompassing Russellville from the heirs of William Penn. Before this time, ownership of Penn's Manor lands was a murky matter with many residents being classed as squatters, because of the difficulty in obtaining clear titles. The owner of the first tavern, Francis Motherall, was not listed as being one of the squatters when the re-survey was made in 1741, but his name does appear on the tax lists of 1754 so while he may have occupied the land and made improvements before title was transferred in 1747, the records are not clear on this point. A list of tavern owners in Chester County dated 1758 shows him one of three in Oxford Township, which then covered both Upper and Lower Oxford and parts of Hopewell and Oxford boroughs. The other owners were John Hayes and Alexander Simrall. Mr. Motherall also appears on the 1774 tax list as Francis Modral, since many liberties were taken with the spelling of his name. On September 19,1782 Esther Motherall, daughter of Francis, married Alexander Russell, for whom the village is named. Mr. Russell, who died in 1799, was at the time of his death called “Tavernkeeper.” His son, Francis Russell , one of the executors, inherited the property. Since Elizabeth Motherall, widow of Francis, was named a creditor of the Alexander Russell estate, it seems certain that the early tavern descended to Mr. Russell from his father-in-law, Francis Motherall.
Various deeds indicate the property contained about 300 acres on both sides of the Newport Road (Route 896) and Limestone Road (old Route l0). In 1813 there was a “wash sale” in which Francis Russell sold 150 acres, including the tavern, to Nathaniel Mudders. Mudders immediately deeded it back to Russell.
In 1816 Francis Russell deeded 109 acres on both sides of the Old Limestone Road, south of the Russellville intersection, to his brother, Hugh, and most of the houses in Russellville were eventually built on this tract, keeping for himself the property on the northwest corner at the Russellville intersection and 150 acres of land on both sides of Route 896. Of this property he sold the tavern and 120 acres to Jacob Hopple for $6850. In 1823 Russellville had a population of one hundred with a sawmill, a hotel, two general stores, a grocery and a post office. From 1851 to 1860, Ezra Gray operated a private school known as the Russellville Academy, but its exact location is uncertain.
Francis Russell, who was a blacksmith as well as a tavern keeper, tried to develop the village of Somerset between Russellville and Homeville at the intersection of Route 896 and Street Road. The area was laid out in lots of a little more than a half-acre each, and a well was dug on Lot No. 22 for the use of all the householders in the village, and a few lots were sold. The 1847 map shows a few houses in the area and an African Meeting House, but by 1875 the town lots had been absorbed into adjacent farms.
Another prominent landmark in Russellville is the Grange Hall. Russellville Grange No. 91 was organized January 31, 1874 by District Deputy Brother John T. Carter in Villa Nova schoolhouse at the crossroads of Routes 926 and 10(Street and Limestone Roads). For several years the Grange met in or near Russellville-in a wheelwright shop where Ernest Cochran lived, a vacant house, in a room over a store, and for two years in a hall on a lot that was later the Underwood property. Finally, the members decided they would like a place where they could both hold their meetings and have a general store for their members. As a consequence, George Ross, owner of the farm later owned by Horace Prange, at the intersection of Street Road and Saw Mill Road, gave them land on which a hall was built. Then Cochranville Grange merged with Russellville Grange. A survey map of 1883 shows a grange hall at the northwest corner of Street Road (Edenton) and Route 896.
At the crossroads of Limestone and Street Roads is Edenton, settled by John Downing, who operated a tavern and a general store. However, it was Nathaniel Blackman,Jr., who gave it the name when he printed the pioneer newspaper there of the area, the Eden Star. The paper, which was issued each Monday night, cost $2. per year, measured 12 by 18 inches and had four columns. The first paper was printed April 19, 1814, Mr. Blackman was a New Englander who had been working near Wilmington, Delaware, when he came to Upper Oxford at the request of Francis Russell, Major Andrew McNeil, Col. Armstrong and other prominent inhabitants. Shortly after his arrival he married Isabella Black, daughter of George and Hannah Ross Black. The wooden building in which the paper was first printed was destroyed by fire but the machinery which was salvaged was moved to Russellville into a building on the southeast corner of the crossroads. The paper, renamed the American Star, was at first well received, as it carried the war news of 1814. However, because the paper printed very little local news it failed for want of community support.
The tavern at Edenton, which was built in 1800, became the residence of Albert and Frances Gans. The barn near where the stagecoach used to stop is today an antique shop and the Edenton Center for the Arts, with classes in painting, pottery and drawing.
At the southern end of the township is Forestville, where Old Route One(route 131) and New London Road (route 896) intersect. Few of the trees of the forest which gave its name to this community remain. At one time Forestville had a blacksmith shop, a store and a post office.
Below Forestville, on the New London Road at the East Branch of the Big Elk, are the beautiful stone mill and the Miller's house which have been in the McDowell family since 1789 when Captain James McDowell bought 425 acres from Dr. Thomas Ruston. Futhey and Cope, in their extensive history of the area, say that Job Ruston had emigrated from Berwick, England, had settled in Faggs Manor, and in 1739 bought 425 acres from the estate of Letitia Aubrey, Penn's daughter. Part of this land was in Upper Oxford Township, where Ruston built a house on the site later owned by William Shaw. It is said that house was built on the site of an earlier mill. It contained grinding stones which had been sent from England. During World War II the machinery of the mill was sold for scrap metal.
Ruston purchased other acreage in the township. Ruston was also in charge of a company of soldiers from Chester County which fought in the French and Indian Wars.
Job Ruston fathered two children by his first wife, one of whom was Dr. Thomas Ruston, born in 1742. Dr. Ruston graduated from Princeton College and then went to the University of Edinburgh in Scotland where he graduated from the Medical Department with such high standing that he was appointed the surgeon in charge of Devon and Exeter Hospital, in Exeter, England, where he stayed fifteen years. He was the first man from the colonies to graduate from the university with a medical degree. Ruston and his reputedly wealthy wife returned to Philadelphia in 1785, where they lived very well until he started speculating in real estate and eventually lost his wealth.
Captain McDowell was born in Ireland and came to Pennsylvania in 1783, settling first in London Station (Lincoln University). In 1798, having purchased property from Dr. Ruston, he moved to Upper Oxford Township where he lived until his death in 1815. He was a captain in the Chester County Light Horse Militia and served in the Revolutionary War. His daughter, Jane, married James McDowell Aitken of Philadelphia, who built the brick house on the next farm toward Forestville, later owned by James and Esther Burlingham. In 1849, after keeping a tavern and store at Jennersville, Aitken left his wife and four children to join the 'gold rush' in California, making the trip via the overland route. Although he reached the gold rush area , he was not successful in keeping what he found, and took off for Central America upon learning of the deaths of his wife and three of his children. After many adventures, he settled in St. Louis, Missouri, remarried and worked on a steamboat. Following the death of the second wife he returned to Lincoln University Village, where he resided until he was able to fulfill a last wish, to spend his final days in the house he had built over 40 years before. As a result he came to live with Henderson McDowell and died in that house in 1885. His obituary noted that “Mr. Aitken was a temperate man but his love for engaging in many occupations was too great for his success in life.
Captain McDowell's great, great, great grandson was a very popular minister of the Upper Octoraro Presbyterian Church, near Parksburg.
The most recent commercial operation in Forestville is the Sher-Rockee Mushroom plant. According to the Witmer map of 1873, this modern facility stands on the site of an old stone farmhouse, formerly owned by J.A. Turner.
Between Russellville and Forestville on Pennsgrove about several thousand feet off Route 896, is the Penn's Grove Friends Meeting, which was established in 1820 as a Preparative Meeting under New Garden, and the slate-roofed, brick and stuccoed building was erected in 1833. Among the worshipers on the opening day was Lucretia Mott, well known for her anti-slavery activities. Judging from the number of family names associated with it, it must have been a fairly large meeting. Since there was another Friends Meeting House in the township, it was a testimony to the large number of Friends resident in the area. Changes were made to the building in 1912, such as removing the dividing between the men's and the women's sections, laying new carpet, and installing new benches, but the attendance diminished to the point that a few years later it was closed. In 1978, through the interest of the late Eleanor Eaton, a member of West Grove Meeting and a resident of Upper Oxford Township, the meeting was cleaned and has been opened on selected Sundays during the summer months.
At the opposite end of the township is Homeville, once the site of two blacksmith shops, a store and an active Friends Meeting. In the early part of this century, Thomas Foulk was the proprietor of a fine department store with three floors and a basement stocked with merchandise. Later the store was operated on a more modest basis by Ira Roth, then Thomas Swift. It finally succumbed to fire in the late 1970s.
According to the account in Quaker Roots, edited by Norma Jacob, the meeting was established in 1828 when approval was granted to a group of Quakers who had petitioned to hold an “Indulged Meeting” in the house of Asa Walton in Colerain Township, Lancaster County. That became the “Oxford Indulged Meeting”, which ten years later was granted permission to build a meeting in Upper Oxford, becoming a 'Preparative Meeting' which in 1841 was joined with 'Penn's Grove Preparative Meeting', forming a monthly meeting. In 1868 the 'Oxford Preparative Meeting' was given the name Homeville. With the decline of the mills and other related population angles, the membership diminished to the point where the meeting was down in 1917, and the property sold to the Homeville Cemetery Company with the provision it could be used for religious purposes on occasion. Therefore, meeting for worship is held once each summer, usually in August.
In 1823, nineteen members of Hephzibah Baptist Church, near Coatesville, and some friends from the community met under an old oak tree on the Jacob Hopple property, later that of Blake Fisher, to discuss the formation of a church in Russellville. Thus was Beulah Baptist Church organized and duly recognized, with a church building being erected that same year.
Jethro Johnson, the first pastor of the new church, served until his death in 1838. The Rev. Johnson, the first deacons and the first trustees are all buried in the adjoining cemetery. In the succession of ministers who came after Reverend Johnson was William McNeil, grandson of Jacob Hopple, on whose farm the church had been first organized. Early ministers were all paid about $300. per year. When the Rev. J.M. Lyons accepted a call as pastor in 1867, he requested a suitable place to live, eight acres of plowed ground and a salary of $400. Accordingly, a house for the minister was purchased in Russellville which remained the parsonage until it was sold in 1949. It later became the home of Samuel England family. A new parsonage, also in Russellville, was purchased and the pastor , Reverend Jack McLanahan, and his family lived there in the 1970s.
Over the years, various additions and improvements have been made to the church. A Sunday School was started in 1838, and in 1846 members were allowed to build sheds for the shelter of their horses. With the expansion of the cemetery, it was noted that strangers could be buried in the southwest corner of the graveyard. In 1956 an east wing was built to enlarge the Sunday School, and in 1976 a new sanctuary was constructed. As a result there is very little that can be seen of the original structure. Across the road on the then Mel Underwood property can be seen one section of the old horse shed in the 1970s, most of which were torn down in 1942 to make room for automobile parking.
The Grace Baptist Church was organized in August of 1950, one month after eleven men of Beulah Baptist met with the pastor, Rev. Ralph Lenz, to discuss the advisability of establishing a new work because of what they perceived to be the “definite opposition to the Gospel” and “coldness and carnality” at Beulah.
The new congregation met in the Spring Lawn Chapel building on the
Hayesville-Cream Road until the basement of their new building on the
corner of Route 10 and Catamount Road was prepared for occupancy.
The super structure was built and occupied in the late 1960s. The
congregation numbered 100-125 in the 1970s and contributed to the
support of 21 missions and missionaries in 1970. The land for the
church was carved out of the Leona and Kemper Sexton farm.
The previous information was taken from Around The Oak
reprinted in 1970 by Friends of the Oxford Public Library.