HOF Volunteers and Friends head for Delaware County, Pennsylvania for a day of fun, food, and history!

Time travelers will leave the HOF Visitor’s Center no later than 9:00 am arriving for a tour of Thomas Leiper House, c. 1785, in Wallingford by approximately 10:00 am. Afterward it is off to   lunch at the landmark Dignazio's Town House Restaurant in Media, followed by an “open house” visit to the historic Newlin Grist Mill, c.1704 for a leisurely afternoon strolling the properties beautiful grounds and buildings which are nestled along the Chester Creek in Glenn Mills.     

The Thomas Leiper House

This Registered Historic Place located in Nether Providence Township, Pennsylvania was built by Thomas Leiper around 1785.  The estate was named Strath Haven after Leiper's birth place in Strathaven, Scotland.  There are 5 buildings: the house, the Safety (vault) with displays of the Leiper industries of quarrying and mills, the Necessary, the smoke and springhouse contained in a single hillside building and the carriage house.  The Leiper house and its setting are significant because they are the last vestiges of a once thriving industrial complex that included the country's first railroad with oxen pulled cars on wooden rails to get the granite to tidewater. The canal story is another fine aspect of Leiper's son's ingenuity. Elizabeth Gray Leiper is notable in her own right. 

Newlin Grist Mill

In the winter 1682/83, Nicholas Newlin and his family landed in Upland (now Chester, PA) newly arrived from Ireland and seeking religious and economic opportunities. The family settled in Concord Township and began building a new life for themselves. In 1704, Nicholas’ son Nathaniel constructed a gristmill now known as the Newlin Grist Mill. The mill served its community as a source for grinding grains and strengthened the economy by exporting products to international markets around the world until 1941. 

We will arrive back in Odessa by 5 pm.