The Convoluted History of the Roseville Farm -- Part II

Eastward-looking view of the old stone farm
house (right) and 20th Century barns (left)

In the first post about the history of the Roseville Farm property, we followed the chain of ownership all  the way from Brewer Sinexon in the 1680's, through the McMechans, the Blacks, the Newbolds, Connelly, and even a Cooch (and a few others thrown in along the way). We saw that the farm had a grist and saw mill erected on it sometime prior to 1765, and a cotton factory built about 1815. It was likely about that time that the original (possibly 1735) brick farmhouse close to the main road (and mills) was complimented by a new, fieldstone house set closer to the middle of the tract. In 1843 the property was purchased by Arthur Chillas, who immediately attempted to (but ultimately did not) sell it.

I won't go too deeply into the Chillas family here, as they've already been mentioned in a previous post (you can also find good information here as well). The short version is that the Chillases were Scottish immigrants (Arthur by way of Liverpool, England) based out of Philadelphia, and Arthur was, at the time, president of the North American Coal Company. He probably bought Roseville as a business proposition, although the 1843 ad does seem to imply he was living there, at least for a short time. By 1850 Arthur was living in a boarding house in Philadelphia. He was a widower, but his second wife (who he would marry in 1851) was listed 11 lines above him in the same boarding house.

As best as I can guess by looking at the 1850 Census, the operator of the Roseville Factory might have been a man named Edward Garrigues. He's listed as a Manufacturer, and the next 15 or so families are all in the textile industry (weaver, spinner, carder, etc.). Immediately after the them is Uriah Drake, the next farmer over, who lived in the Meeteer House (now the Yasik Funeral Home). As best as I can tell, Garrigues was a pharmacist in Philadelphia, so he may have known Chillas from there and been brought in to supervise the factory.

The Convoluted History of the Roseville Farm -- Part I

There are certainly many properties in Mill Creek Hundred that have had multiple phases or lives 
through the course of their history, but there's one in particular that through much of the 19th Century had a bit of a split personality. The property in question has been known as Roseville for at least about 200 years, and sits (mostly) on the north side of White Clay Creek and west of Possum Park Road. Roseville has been featured in blog posts quite a few times: about the Roseville Cotton Factory, the nearby development of Roseville Park, the Roseville Covered Bridge, the Roseville Electric Plant, and about the Italian community at Roseville. There were also two posts about the Chillas family -- one about David Chillas and another follow-up about the Chillas family and their connection to the cotton factory.

Pretty much all of the posts and discussion about the Roseville property have focused on the very southwestern edge of it, along White Clay Creek. This is where the Roseville Cotton Factory was, and where the other various buildings stood that were related to it. However, this was not just a small mill lot -- the land it occupied was actually part of a larger 174 acre (and other amounts over the years) tract with a history that both predated and outlasted the industrial activity. That history got more than a bit convoluted at times, with multiple sales and lots of mortgages placed on it covering almost every owner, but I'll do my best to give a cohesive overview.

The history of the first 100 years or so of European occupation of the land is laid out very nicely in a deed from 1778. That deed, which records the sale from John Evans to James Black, shows that the first transfer (at least under English control) was back in 1683. In that year, William Penn warranted land (surveyed the next year at 300 acres) to Brewer Sinnexon, although I have a feeling that Sinnexon was probably already here. That tract lay on both sides of White Clay Creek, but in 1698 Sinnexon sold 100 acres on the north side of the creek (meaning, in MCH) to John Gardner. In 1701, Gardner sold the 100 acres to Cornelius "Neals" Cook, who also owned other land in the area.