Page 25 - The Hunt - Spring 2022

National Register of Historic Places in 1971, and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987. Marshall built the 2.5-story structure himself to specifications that furthered his management and collection of botanical specimens. He’s buried across what’s now West Strasburg Road at the Bradford Friends Meeting Burial Ground—without a marker, per Quaker tradition.
native of Gratton in Lincolnshire, England, Abraham Marshall arrived in America about 1697.
David Cox at the Marshalton Inn.
David Cox likes to look out onto the Marshalton Inn’s ancient porch, imagining what it was like in the 1850s. “You can see it, touch it, feel it,” he says. “They’d get off their horses, park their wagons and walk into the bar.”
Thomas Cheyney witnessed a large British force marching near the forks of Brandywine Creek. He and other local militia rode toward Chadds Ford, alerting George Washington so the general could avoid disaster. Marshallton also lays claim to Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, who lived at the Harlan Farm when they surveyed the Mason-Dixon Line from
a point of astrological observation known as the “Stargazer’s Stone.”
The first cousin of Philadelphia botanist John Bartram, Marshall has been called the father of American dendrology, the science and study of woody plants. Built in 1773, his home still stands. There he established the nation’s second proper botanical garden—outdone only by his older cousin. But Marshall’s commercial success surpassed that of Bartram, a well-respected naturalist who also sold seeds and plants to the world.
The Humphry Marshall House was documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1958, listed on the
A
He settled near Darby and married Mary Hunt, whose father, James,
was a companion of William Penn.
In 1707, Abraham moved to the forks of
Brandywine Creek near the western branch, purchasing large tracts of land among the
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