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Uwchlan Township Historical Commission historic property research files
Notifications
Held at: Uwchlan Township Historical Commission [Contact Us]715 North Ship Road, Exton, PA, 19341
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Uwchlan Township Historical Commission. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Uwchlan Township in Chester County, Pennsylvania was settled by Welsh Quakers in the early 18th century, remaining a largely rural farming community until a post-World War II suburbanization boom. Uwchlan embraces the Lionville Historic District, a crossroads community registered as a national historic district with 39 contributing historic buildings.
The Uwchlan Township Historical Commission historic property research files were created as part of the township's participation in Chester County's historic resource surveys beginning in the 1980s.
"In the midst of the Country's Bicentennial patriotic fervor, the Chester County Redevelopment Authority held a public meeting in Downingtown that was seminal in approaching efforts to preserve the county's historic resources. At this meeting it was suggested that money be utilized to identify historic buildings and structures using Chester County's Community Development Block Grant funding from Housing and Urban Development. In 1966 the United States Congress had passed the National Historic Preservation Act that enabled such a survey to take place.
"At the same time, similar historic surveys were beginning elsewhere in Pennsylvania, which made it one of the first states to undertake such an initiative. The Commonwealth's Historical and Museum Commission brought an expert from Canada to teach six regional coordinators on historic survey methodology.
"The Chester County Commissioners assembled a partnership with the Chester County Historical Society, the Brandywine Conservancy and many, many volunteers to organize the proposed Chester County Historic Sites Survey. This survey, conducted between 1979 and 1982, would include all of Chester County except for the Boroughs of West Chester and Downingtown, which would have their own survey projects initiated around this time.
"Volunteers attended meetings to learn how to identify historic resources, fifty years and older, and specific Architectural Styles prevalent in Chester County from William Penn's "Penn Plan" to Twentieth Century Sears Roebuck and Company Bungalows. They were taught how to (1) complete Architectural Inventory Forms (AIF); (2) take architectural photography; (3) log photography; and (4) prioritize the property's historical significance (in some cases)."
Bibliography:
Quoted text from: Chester County. "Chester County Historic Sites Survey." Chester County Historic Resource ID. 2014. Accessed February 25, 2014. http://webapps.chesco.org/ccparks/cwp/view.asp?A=1553&Q=625110.
Brody, Susanna Wilson. Uwchlan Township: 300 Years Above the Valley. Uwchlan Township Historical Commission: 2011.
Gerlach, Jim (PA). "300th Anniversary of Uwchlan Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania." Congressional Record 158:100 (June 29, 2012), page E1195. Accessed February 12, 2014. http://capitolwords.org/date/2012/06/29/E1195_300th-anniversary-of-uwchlan-township-chester-coun/.
This collection consists of folders for every building more than fifty years old in Uwchlan Township, organized by address and land parcel. Each folder contains a master file with forms and materials from historic resource surveys (floor plans, maps, correspondence, tax duplicates, survey forms) as well as photographs, more recent research, and other relevant documents. There are also some folders on parks and open spaces, featuring survey forms and photographs.
A Chester County architectural inventory for Uwchlan Township is also available on-site.
Materials created or collected by the Uwchlan Township Historical Commission.
Summary descriptive information on this collection was compiled in 2012-2014 as part of a project conducted by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania to make better known and more accessible the largely hidden collections of small, primarily volunteer run repositories in the Philadelphia area. The Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories (HCI-PSAR) was funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
This is a preliminary finding aid. No physical processing, rehousing, reorganizing, or folder listing was accomplished during the HCI-PSAR project.
In some cases, more detailed inventories or finding aids may be available on-site at the repository where this collection is held; please contact Uwchlan Township Historical Commission directly for more information.
Organization
Subject
Place
- Publisher
- Uwchlan Township Historical Commission
- Finding Aid Author
- Finding aid prepared by Celia Caust-Ellenbogen and Sarah Leu through the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories
- Sponsor
- This preliminary finding aid was created as part of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories. The HCI-PSAR project was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
- Access Restrictions
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Contact Uwchlan Township Historical Commission for information about accessing this collection.