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Maurice Saul Wildlife Preserve

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This is a contributing entry for Maurice Saul Wildlife Preserve and only appears as part of that tour.Learn More.

Proceed about 50 yards on the Overlook Trail. To the right at the Connector trail you will see a stand of white pine trees. This is the area of Saul's Roost. The pines, and hemlock trees to the left, and the dead oak before you, were planted to provide saplings for the Rose Valley Nursery. Pines are ideal habitat for great horned owls, who safely roost their brood above the forest and also stalk their prey through the night sky.


Saul Preserve Saul's Roost Holly

Plant, Tree, Natural landscape, Trunk

Emergent White Pines and Canopy Tulips

Emergent White Pines and Canopy Tulips

Hemlock on the edge of Saul's Roost

Natural landscape, Terrestrial plant, Trunk, Tree

The Rose Valley Nursery was started by Maurice Bower Saul and Adele Scott Saul, who, as active members of the community, created wonderful gardens on their estate and founded the Rose Valley Nursery. Mr. Saul, a successful Philadelphia lawyer, was instrumental in establishing the Rose Valley Borough in 1923. He eventually donated land to both the School in Rose Valley and the Old Mill, and of course the Preserve.

Adele Scott Saul was a sister of Mildred Scott Olmstead, who with her husband Allen Seymour Olmsted owned Thunderbird Lodge for many years. Bobby Saul, their son, was raised at Shoenhaus among the gardens and greenhouses, and he and his wife, Mary Whelan, took over the nursery. before WW2. Bobby tragically died in the war, Mary remarried Ed McLaughlin, and the Nursery moved in 1950 to Middletown Road. Mary had two sons with Bobby and two more sons with Ed. Andy Saul still volunteers in the Preserve.

Before them the Shoen family had a working farm, and the Sauls had purchased that part of the property. Shoen primarily had orchards and vineyards, and the Sauls and then McLaughlins expanded and planted seedlings on their adjacent floodplain and upland property to provide stock for the nursery. Among the remaining species are white pine, American sycamore, northern blackwood, black locust, and bigleaf magnolia. The Environmental Advisory Council has recently planted a number of scarlet oaks to replenish this area of the Preserve.

The Saul's Roost is well know among older Rose Valley residents. As children they called part of it Daffodil Hill, for the numerous daffodils that bloomed every spring. The pine woods were considered magical for the quiet provided by the deep forest bed and overhead cover, that stayed cool and and comfortable in the summer heat. The switchback entrance to the Overlook Trail was created as an Eagle Project by Scouts of Troop 272, headquartered in Rose Valley.

Peter Ham and other Editors . The History of Rose Valley. Volume 1. Rose Valley, Pennsylvania. Rose Valley Borough, 1974.

Image Sources(Click to expand)

Ron Ploeg

Peter Howell