Chadwick Wildlife Preserve

Welcome to the Chadwick Wildlife Preserve, a 13-acre wooded community open space in Long Point, part of Rose Valley, Pennsylvania. It is named for E. Wallace Chadwick, a civic minded judge and congressman, who bequeathed the funds for the purchase of the land, completed in 1972. Long Point is so called for the ridge and floodplain surrounded by a 180-degree bend of Ridley Creek. The Preserve has walking trails pictured on a map located in the Preserve trailhead, which you can download to smartphone with a QR code. The Minquas Trail takes you down a wide path to the Ridley Creek Floodplain, the Long Point Trail takes you around the point near Ridley Creek, and the Meditation Trail returns you via a picturesque and meandering ridge route of switchback rises to the beginning.

E. Wallace Chadwick was president judge of the Delaware County Orphan’s Court in 1945. He became a U. S. Congressman in 1947, and in 1954 was chief council of a Senate committee investigating Joseph McCarthy. He moved to artist Elenore Abbott’s house on Possum Hollow Rd in 1941. He died in 1969 and is interred in the Old Union Methodist Church Cemetery on Brookhaven Rd. He had possessed a deep sense of civic and community responsibility, and bequeathed to the borough a gift to preserve open space and wooded areas for posterity. The money was used to purchase 13 acres in Long Point for a wildlife sanctuary. There is a bronze plaque on a large stone at the entrance to memorialize Judge Chadwick’s contribution, given by his family in 1972. He also donated a sizable gift to enlarge the Helen Kate Furness library.

The 17th-century Minquas Trail trade route crossed Ridley Creek near this point. It ran 80 miles, from the palisaded towns of the Susquehannock Nation along the lower Susquehannock River through the Lenape Nation to the Schuylkill near its confluence with the Delaware. The Susquehannock used the trail to trade beaver pelts, first with the Dutch, then Swedish, and then English merchants, for metal tools and cookware. Rose Valley’s remnant of the Great Minquas Trail is a reminder of our forebears on this land – the Lenape, whole members still have a vibrant presence here as the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania, and the Susquehannock, whose voices are lost to history.

The Chadwick Preserve Trails are maintained by the Rose Valley Environmental Advisory Council, a group of volunteer community residents appointed by Borough Council to advise officials and educate citizens about the protection, conservation, management, promotion, and use of natural resources. The Trail map located at the trailhead kiosk, created by the EAC, is downloadable on your smartphone via a QR code., or you can take a photo of it for reference. It shows the various trails in Chadwick Preserve and 10 Points of Interest, which are individually described in this tour. The kiosk was an Eagle Scout project of Rose Valley Troop 272. The trail sign posts were made from a fallen Black Walnut Tree, and the tiles were made by the Moravian Tileworks in Doylestown, PA. Mercer Tiles exist throughout Rose Valley signposts and both the exterior and interior of Will Price designed homes here.

Ham, Peter. The History of Rose Valley. Volume 1. Borough of Rose Valley, 1973.

Thomas, George . Arts & Crafts to Modern Design, William L. Price. New York. Princeton Architectural Press, 2000.

Latham, Roger. Great Minquas (Susquehannock) Path Poster. . Published September 27th, 2023.