Organization Overview

Since 1895, Delaware County Historical Society (DCHS) has been gathering and sharing the stories of the county and its people. Delaware County is the oldest settled section of Pennsylvania, with history dating back to 1643. DCHS has been the premier steward of Delaware County’s history and culture for nearly 130 years, and is the only 501(c)(3) of its kind in Delaware County.

DCHS provides historic preservation resources to other groups, and promotes significant historic events unique to each of Delaware County’s 49 boroughs and townships. DCHS’s collections number in the hundreds of thousands and include deeds, documents, maps, photographs, artwork, books, microfilm, newspapers, and 3-D artifacts. It includes items predating European contact, with some of the oldest documents dating from the late 17th century.

After nearly two years of indexing, organizing, and culling through the collection, DCHS safely moved its collection from its original home in Chester to downtown Media. On September 26, 2024, DCHS debuted its new location with an Open House and celebration. The welcoming building is accessible by car and public transportation, or via the bustling and walkable streets of the Borough.

Project Description

Over our 130-year history, DCHS’s collection has grown to hold some of the most unique and invaluable pieces that relate not only to Delaware County history, but also to history at the national and international stage. Each item has been carefully selected and vetted to ensure that its provenance is to Delaware County, and it tells a unique part of Delaware County’s history.

Since opening its new location in 2024, DCHS has focused on bringing the history of Delaware County to the community through increased public programming and making its collection more accessible. To coincide with celebrations happening nationwide to commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence 250 years ago, DCHS launched “Where Pennsylvania Began,” a series of public programs that celebrates Delaware County’s place in America’s 250-year history and engages the broader community in our local history. By involving the community in this way, we seek to increase DCHS’s reach and build more excitement and interest in what our collection and research facility offers.

Preserving and restoring these works is a costly endeavor, but necessary to help ensure that these works of art are preserved for the next generation of stewards to appreciate. The goal of DCHS is to have the Marquis de Lafayette portrait restored by Fourth of July, and to have a continuing rotation of works restored after. With each work restored, DCHS will feature the work on display during our special open house events for the community of Delaware County. Your support will help ensure these wonderful Delco historic treasures are preserved!

“The Marquis de Lafayette Portrait”

by Anonymous/Unknown (circa 1825)

This oil on canvas portrait is of an unknown sitter and artist. The portrait is allegedly of Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, a hero of the War for American Independence.

It is known that Lafayette visited the area of Delaware County both in 1824 and 1825 during his Grand Tour of America. The frame is damaged, and the portrait is aged and yellowing. Restoration and conservation are needed to help preserve its state, and this work could also shine light on the identity of the artist and the sitter.

Washington Tavern Sign

by John Archibald Woodside Sr. (1849)

John Archibald Woodside Sr. (1781-1852) was a celebrated sign painter of the Federalist period in Philadelphia. Woodside was a student of Matthew Pratt (1734-1805) and his works were exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts between 1817 and 1835. Woodside also painted on sides of fire engines and is credited with doing the first locomotive decoration.

The Washington Tavern Sign was from “The President Tavern” on West Chester Pike and Providence Road in Edgmont Township, Delaware County. The sign was painted in 1849 and was outside the tavern until 1923. Both sides depict General George Washington, with one side based on a 1790 portrait by Edward Savage, with General Washington seated at table in his study. The other side is an equestrian portrait, with Washington on top of his horse.

The Washington Tavern Sign was donated to DCHS in 1923 by Edgar Howard Pierce after the tavern closed and was sold at public auction. The sign is a rare antiquity of Delaware County’s history of taverns and inn’s that dot the County. The frame measures 65”x 42”. The tavern sign has remarkably maintained well, but it is fading, and in need of conservation treatment and an assessment. A mounted stand for display is recommended.

While this piece was on display to the public at DCHS’s former location in Chester, very few people had the chance to view it due to the location’s very limited foot traffic. Additionally, it was displayed at the height it would have been hung when it was a tavern sign (15 to 20 ft high). This will be the first time it is accessibly displayed at eye level.

Launching of the “City of Peking” from Roach’s Shipyard, Chester, Pennsylvania

by Alexander Charles Stuart (1874)

Stuart’s portrait of a ship launching from Roach’s Shipyard of Chester demonstrates the unique engineering history of Delaware County at the height of the 19th Century. The City of Peking held the record for the largest American ship afloat until 1889. The launching ceremony depicted here was reportedly attended by 25,000 people and included a trial ride with President Ulysses S. Grant and Vice President Wilson. This was a unique moment in history as this was also effectively the first time the United States of America was without an executive head in the country.

Stuart became a United States citizen after resigning from the navy in 1866. Thereafter, he worked primarily as an artist and illustrator for the merchant shipbuilding companies of John Roach & Son in Chester from 1872 to 1880, and then with Harlan & Hollingsworth in Wilmington, Delaware through the late 1880s. During this time, he became well known for documenting many of the early iron steamships built by these firms in the latter nineteenth century.

Portrait of Emma Crozer Knowles by Thomas Buchanan Read (1864)

Emma Crozer Knowles was the youngest daughter of textile mill owner and philanthropist, John Price Crozer. The Crozer family under John Price Crozer was an influential and affluent family within Delaware County during the 19th century. This portrait was donated to DCHS by the estate of Robert C. Alexander in 1988.

Thomas Buchanan Read was an accomplished portrait artist of the 19th century. His work included noteworthy portraits of Abraham Lincoln, William Henry Harrison, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Alfred Tennyson. A native of Downingtown, Read painted this portrait after his service in the American Civil War in 1864. Today, Read’s work can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Art Gallery, and the Cincinnati Art Museum.

Portrait of John Glenn Pew by Furman Joseph Finck (circa 1940’s)

John G. Pew was the president of the Sun Ship Building and Drydock Company in Chester, from 1919 through the Second World War. Under Pew’s leadership, Sun Ship Sun was the largest among the country's five largest shipyards, with eight slipways. Twenty slipways were added during the war, making Sun Ship the country's largest shipyard. At its peak, the company employed more than 40,000 workers in four shipyards. During World War II, Sun Shipbuilding was the largest private-sector employer of African Americans in the U.S. and controversially segregated many of the Black workers to yard #4. Pew’s legacy within Delaware County was cemented through this industrial giant, becoming one of the largest employers in the county’s history.

Furman Joseph Finck was born in Chester in 1900. Finck was a renowned portrait artist and professor of painting at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and at the École des Beaux-Arts and Académie Julian in Paris. On his return to America, Finck developed a superb reputation as a portrait painter, having done portraits for Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Much of Finck’s work was widely exhibited, and he won the prestigious Altman prize at the National Academy of Design in New York. After his retirement from Temple, Finck taught first at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and then at the National Academy of Design in New York.

Portrait of Spencer McIlvain by Samuel Bell Waugh (1876)

Spencer McIlvain was born in 1803, in what is today known as Ridley, but was also known as Leiperville. McIlvain was employed in the sawmill, tannery, and homestead farm during the life of his father. All of McIlvain's active business life was devoted to farming, grazing beef cattle for the Philadelphia markets, and operating in the extensive quarries on his estate. In 1838, he was elected one of the County Commissioners.

In 1872, he sold the greater part of his reality to William Simpson, the founder of the Eddystone Print Works, but prior to that he had laid out into streets a tract in the present Fifth ward of Chester and erected several cotton factories and a few dwellings. Today, his family home still stands in Eddystone, and his former properties were sold to create the Baldwin Locomotive Works.

Samuel Bell Waugh was a 19th-century American portrait, landscape, and moving panorama painter. His portrait subjects included Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant. Waugh was one of the leading portrait painters in Philadelphia during his lifetime and was known nationally for his Italian moving panoramas. Waugh exhibited frequently at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the Artists' Fund Society of Philadelphia, the National Academy of Design in New York, and the Boston Athenaeum. His traveling panoramas, Mirror of Italy, or Grand Tour through Italy and Italia were well received by American public. In 1847, he became an honorary member of the National Academy of Design and Toronto Society of Arts.

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