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Throughout its range it lives most commonly in bottomland or floodplain areas, thriving in the wet environments provided by rivers, streams, or near-surface groundwater. American sycamore is a long-lived species, typically surviving at least 200 years and likely as long as 500–600 years. As one of the largest trees in the wet bottomland habitats where it dominates, it is a key component of the structure of those habitats.The heartwood of a sycamore tree decays quickly, producing large hollow cavities in the center of the trees that are used by many animals as nesting sites. The largest hollow trees can be big enough for black bear dens, but average trees create homes for bats and cavity-nesting birds like wood duck, barred owl, screech owl, chimney swift, and great-crested flycatcher.

Sycamore Trunk. Note the Swiss Army pocket knife for size.

Turn back on the Minquas Trail from C5 Indian Rock and make an immediate left turn on Long Point Trail for about 30 yards. On your left about 15 feet off the path you will see a towering tree. This is the Giant Sycamore. It is an American sycamore, also called buttonwood or Platanus occidentalis, one of the two largest tree species found in the wild in Rose Valley (the other is tuliptree, also called yellow-poplar, prevalent in Saul Preserve).

Chadwick Preserve POI C6 Giant Sycamore

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.

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.

The material deposited on the meander points is well-sorted by flood currents, causing the cobbles, gravel, and sand to form bands or zones. Point bars have a very gentle slope and an elevation close to water level. Since they are low-lying, they are often covered by floodwaters and can accumulate driftwood and other debris during times of high water.Due to their nearly flat topography, near-absence of vegetation, and the fact that the water speed is slow in the shallows of the point bar they are popular rest stops for boaters, rafters, and walkers. Because several kinds of bedrock are present just upstream from this point bar, there is a striking variety of cobblestone and gravel colors and textures mixed together here. You will also find quartz and serpentinite, and highly weathered artifacts such as bricks and bits of glass.One of the most interesting aspects of Rose Valley's geology is the small serpentinite outcrop — about 2½ acres — near the top of the hill just across the creek from Long Point on Wychwood Lane. Serpentinite is a metamorphic rock derived from igneous oceanic crust and is quite rare on land. It's famous for weathering into a very unusual type of soil that often supports unique vegetation called serpentine barrens, which includes many rare or endangered species. When you wander the point bars at Long Point, which are directly downslope from Rose Valley's serpentinite outcrop, you can find a few cobbles of light-green serpentinite among the many cobbles of schist, gneiss, and quartz.

Continue on Long Point Trail past the intersection with The Minquas Path. Further along the creek bed you will see two large expanses of cobblestones leading into Ridley Creek. These are the Meander Point Bars. Long Point is the sharpest meander of Ridley Creek, formed where the flow was diverted millennia ago by the highly resistant rock of the hill across the stream. A point bar is a depositional feature made of sand, gravel, and cobblestones that accumulates on the inside bends of streams and rivers in a crescent shape.

Chadwick Preserve POI C10 Meander Point Bars (Cobblestones)

The Susquehannock used the trail to trade beaver pelts, first with Dutch, then Swedish, then English merchants, for metal tools and cookware. The Dutch began the fur trade in the 1620s from ships anchored in the Schuylkill. They named the trail Beversreede, or Beaver Road. In the 1630s they built Fort Beversreede at the trail’s eastern terminus.The Susquehannock used the path in their attempted conquest of part of the Lenape Nation, Lenapehoking, which included most of present-day eastern Pennsylvania and parts of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. “Minquas,” meaning despicable ones, was the local Lenape name for the Susquehannock.Swedish settlers founded the New Sweden colony in 1638 near present-day Wilmington. Six years later they built a fort where the path crossed Cobbs Creek, in an attempt to siphon off the Native American fur trade from the Dutch. In 1655 the Dutch conquered New Sweden, renaming it New Netherland. In 1664 the English conquered New Netherland, and in 1681 the colony was absorbed into William Penn’s land grant, the province of Pennsylvania. Another English name for the Susquehannock was Conestoga, after their largest town on the Susquehanna River. The Susquehannock were decimated by smallpox and by long conflicts with European settlers and the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois). Many moved or intermarried with other tribes. In 1763 a frontier terrorist gang, the Paxtang Boys, massacred the last twenty Conestoga.Rose Valley’s remnant of the Great Minquas Path is a reminder of our forebears on this land—the Lenape, whose members still have a vibrant presence here as the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania, and the Susquehannock, whose voices are lost to history.

Continue about 30 yards on the Long Point Trail from C8 Pawpaw Patch until the next crossing signpost. The trail to the left is the Great Minquas Path. The 17th-century Native American trade route crossed Ridley Creek near this point. It ran 80 miles, from the palisaded towns of the Susquehannock Nation along the lower Susquehanna through the Lenape Nation to the Schuylkill near its confluence with the Delaware.

Chadwick Preserve POI C9 The Great Minquas Path

Asimina is the only temperate genus in the tropical and subtropical flowering plant family Annonaceae, and northern pawpaw has the most northern range of all of its species. Well-known tropical relatives include custard-apple, cherimoya, sweetsop, and soursop (guanábana in Spanish). Pawpaw fruits are sweet, with a custard-like texture, and a flavor somewhat similar to banana, mango, and pineapple. They are commonly eaten raw, but are also used to make ice cream and baked desserts. Their shelf life is only a few days, which is why they’re rarely available in markets except for farmers’ markets.Until the expansion of humans into North America at the end of the last ice age, dispersal of pawpaw seeds occurred mainly via the dung of certain megafauna such as mastodons, mammoths, and giant ground sloths. It is thought that humans replaced megafauna as the species’ main disperser. Native Americans planted pawpaw patches and feasted on the fruits every year in late September.A pawpaw tree sends out runners and grows new stems, spreading over an ever-increasing area. The several dozen trees you see here are all one individual, connected underground. Because pawpaw flowers are self-incompatible, that is, they can’t be fertilized by pollen from the same tree, this tree has never fruited. The Rose Valley Environmental Advisory Council is planting pawpaw trees here that are genetically unrelated so this stand will someday produce fruit.

Proceed on the southeast portion of the Long Point Trail from C7 Picnic Rock for about 20 yards. You will see a large stand of dark green leafed 10' to 14' trees set about 20' to the left of the trail. This is the Pawpaw Patch. The small trees with very large leaves here are northern pawpaw, also called Asimina triloba, whose yellowish-green to brown fruits are the largest edible fruit indigenous to the United States.

Chadwick Preserve POI C8 Pawpaw Patch

This giant boulder of Wissahickon schist most likely detached many thousands of years ago from the steep hill on the opposite side of Ridley Creek and rolled down to its current dramatic location on the creek bed. The Wissahickon Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. It is named for the Wissahickon gorge in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. The Wissahickon is described as a pelitic schist and gneiss with interlayers of quartzite.Color is highly variable which is its appeal for construction. A general description is a silver to brown garnet mica-schist. The highly variable nature of this rock type is also why the metamorphic grade (amount of heat and pressure involved in its metamorphism) is also complex. The existence of the minerals biotite, garnet, staurolite, and kyanite all imply a low-intermediate to high metamorphic grade, depending on location.Scouring by floodwaters carrying sand and gravel has smoothed its surface. Find a workable path down the eroding silted edge to access Picnic Rock. Visitors are welcome to sit out in the sun and enjoy the soothing sound of the creek’s rapids, the peacefulness of this isolated valley, and the comings and goings of the local wildlife. If you’re lucky you may spot a bald eagle fishing in the creek. It’s a great spot for a picnic, but don’t forget to take your trash with you and please respect the water and all that lives in it.

Proceed about 10 yards down the long Point Trail from C6 Giant Sycamore and then 10 yards to the right by Ridley Creek. The wide rock jutting into the creek is Picnic Rock. It is composed of schist, another metamorphic rock common to the crystalline Piedmont of southeastern Pennsylvania.

Chadwick Preserve POI C7 Picnic Rock

The Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania is not recognized by the Commonwealth f Pennsylvania, although there are many Lenape Tribes, like the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation of New Jersey, that have state and/or national recognition.In support of their effort at gaining state recognition, here is a letter from the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania and information about how individuals can sign a petition and support themAfter decades of trying, we are finally seeing progress in our struggle for state recognition—but we need your help! We have the attention of lawmakers, but it is now crucial that they hear from you—our members, treaty-signers, and supporters. You are an important part of this historic occasion; please take at least one of these steps (or all if possible) to urge Pennsylvania lawmakers to recognize the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania:Step 1: Click here to sign the petition (https://chng.it/J6Y2mZpZ) and share the petition widely.Step 2: Write your local &amp; state legislators. Attached to this email is a sample letter with talking points you may copy and paste into your letter if you choose. Send your letters to at least these five people:1.Governor Shapiro: Phone: 717-787-2500 E-mail: governor@state.pa.us2.Attorney General Michelle Henry: Phone: 717-787-3391 Email: info@attorneygeneral.gov3.Lt. Governor Austin Davis: Phone: 717-787-3300 E-mail: LGoffice@pa.gov4.Your State Representative5.Your State Senator​ If you live in PA, it is important to contact your specific Pennsylvania State Representative and State Senator. Click here  to find your legislators and their contact info (https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/findyourlegislator/) Step 3: If you want to do even more, you can call these officials and tell them that it is past time to recognize the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania. More information is available on our website and in the attached letter, and don't hesitate to contact us with questions. As always, we are very grateful for your support!-Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania Council Sample Letter Below:To Pennsylvania Legislators:I hereby offer this letter of support for the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania, a long-establishedtribal entity whose members are all direct descendants of Lenape ancestors who remained inPennsylvania, in their endeavor to achieve formal recognition by the Commonwealth ofPennsylvania. It is inconceivable that our Commonwealth has yet to bestow the properrecognition and rights that the Lenape Nation of PA members are far overdue as the first peopleof this land. They alone possess unique history of the Lenape who remained behind, honoringtheir ancestors and their descendants, and retaining the vast amount of culture and tradition thathas been passed down from Lenape elders here in our Commonwealth.It is well past due for Pennsylvania to join our neighbor states of New Jersey and Delaware inrecognizing their own Lenape descendants. For many years the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvaniahas worked diligently as stewards and caretakers of the Delaware River, the land, and the people.Their high appreciation and protection of the natural environment and the watershed is a valuableasset to the Commonwealth. For over 20 years they have been engaged in partnerships with over130 organizations who work together to reach these goals. Partners include environmentalorganizations, faith-based organizations, youth groups, elders’ societies, historical societies,businesses, government officials, and others. The Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania generouslyshares Lenape language classes, education programs about the Delaware river, and history andculture - not just with their members, but with all who are interested.The Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania has struggled for over 30 years attempting to garnerrecognition as the remaining indigenous people of Pennsylvania. They have sent delegations andrepresentatives to stand before various committees seeking recognition, beginning in the 1990’swith Chief William Thompson, and continuing as recently as May 1st 2023, when they held arally on the capitol steps in honor of Tamanend Day. Several Senators, House Representatives,and other officials have pledged their support of the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania, butthis has yet to lead to action.As the most minor act of reparations for the harm that was historically done to the Lenape peoplewho remained and suffered persecution, discrimination, and forced assimilation within theirPennsylvania homeland for hundreds of years, Pennsylvania should recognize the existence andlegitimacy of its indigenous people still residing in the state. Don’t we, as Pennsylvanianscollectively, owe our Lenape neighbors at least that much? These indigenous keepers of the landsand waters were forced to hide for much too long and deserve to be recognized and given rightsof self-determination as outlined in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights forIndigenous Peoples adopted in 2007. The work the LNPA is doing to not only preserve the truehistory of the Lenapehokink (Lenape Homeland) but to also invite us all into a more harmoniousand peaceful relationship with these lands is crucial at this point in our collective human history.Our Pennsylvania State Legislators MUST affirm the rights and acknowledge the legacy of theLenape Nation of Pennsylvania.

Proceed back on the Minquas Trail from the Deer Impact Monitoring Plots about 20 yards and you will see a large rock formation on your left. This is Indian Rock, named by early Rose Valley residents and featured during a 1998 Minquas Trail Walk. Despite the name, scholars agree that the location, being near the floodplain and entirely exposed, would not have been suitable for a campground.The formation, about 15' X15', is composed primarily of gneiss, a light colored crystalline rock. You can observe the layers (mineral grains) are now vertical, although they were originally horizontal and formed by extreme heat and pressure. The large horizontal fissures and exposed cracks indicate the rock fell from a higher elevation on the ridge and settled here.

Chadwick Preserve POI C5 Indian Rock

With the help of Scout Troop 272, identical arrays of 95 native small trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants of nine species were planted in these two adjacent cleared plots, matched in soils, topography, and sun exposure, one in which deer and no other herbivores were excluded and one accessible to deer. After 17 months of growth and herbivory, measurements were made of each species’ survival, flowering/fruiting status, stem count per plant, and height of each plant’s tallest stem. Spontaneously growing (unplanted) vegetation was also tallied in each plot so comparisons could be made of species diversity and relative estimated population sizes among native and nonnative invasive species. The results showed extreme differences between the deer-present and deer-excluded plots in survival and performance of planted “phytometers” and in the composition of unplanted vegetation. Where deer were present, phytometer survival, rate of flowering, and number and height of stems were far lower, unplanted vegetation species richness and evenness were far lower, and dominance by nonnative invasive species was far higher than where deer were excluded.

Continue down the Meditation Trail and switchback until it meets the Long Point Trail. Take a right and proceed approximately 25 yards to the Minquas Trail. Continue forward approximately 20 yards on the Minquas Trail and on your left there will be a large wooden post and fence enclosed area. This is the Deer Impact Monitoring Plots, and you will notice a sign within the fence describing the project. A variety of observations in the roughly 36 acres of wildlife sanctuaries owned and managed by the borough of Rose Valley have long been consistent with ongoing severe forest degradation by the white-tailed deer population, which is far higher than it has ever been due to the extermination of their natural predators, including mountain lions and wolves. To test the hypothesis that deer overpopulation is the cause of the observed degradation, a scientist undertook a rigorous, quantitative approach to isolating and measuring deer impacts separately from all other effects on vegetation.

Chadwick Preserve POI C4 Deer Impact Monitoring Plots

The Seekers After Knowledge were primarily a social and outing group, traveling to natural sites like Eagles Mere and Scalp Level, both in Pennsylvania, and Kezar Falls, Maine. Members included Will Price, Emma Webb, Nathan Kite, Henry Troth, and others. Emma’s father William Webb, and Henry’s parents were often drivers and chaperones. Existing journals, written by Will or Henry, date the trips from 1884 to 1886. Nicknames and references to native culture acknowledge the local Lenape and Minquas history which includes Long Point and Rose Valley.The cabin appears to predate the group, perhaps a holdover from the Rose Valley Mills days, and it became a rendezvous point for the Seekers After Knowledge and eventually the 1901 Rose Valley Arts &amp; Crafts community. Access was by a swinging bridge over Ridley Creek. Ruins of boat houses, and stories of the “Dam to Dam” canoeing club, suggest the creek at Long Point was a popular summertime destination. Picnicking streamside and the Cabin were also popular pastimes. The chimney is all that remains of the cabin. It was repointed as a work project sponsored by the Rose Valley Centennial Foundation.The Seekers After Knowledge clearly enjoyed acting, singing and costume dramas, which became popular during travel vacations. Journal descriptions and accompanying photographs have the group in costume, reading from Shakespeare or making up stories and songs to perform together. These activities continued with the founding of Artsman’s Hall (Hedgerow Theatre). They enjoyed dress-up parties, performed Gilbert &amp; Sullivan in the ground floor theatre, and eventually produced an original Will Price play “The Artsman”. Here was founded the Rose Valley Chorus, which still exists today. Friends made in Philadelphia and among the Quaker community, who were members of the Seekers After Knowledge, eventually made up the early residents of 1901 Rose Valley. Neighbors in Spring Garden included the Webb family, whose father owned the local pharmacy, and who eventually moved to Swarthmore. Will Price met daughter Emma Webb, and after a long courtship they married in 1888. Emma attended Swarthmore College. Nathan Kite, a graduate of Haverford, eventually married Anna Price, Will’s sister. He was a well-known acting talent, along with Anna the Innkeepers of the Guest House, and eventually the first Burgess (mayor) of Rose Valley. Also, Henry Troth, the group’s photographer, was the grandson of a co-founder of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. After moving to Rose Valley, he became an award winning pictorialist photographer known for his original platinum work.

Proceed a short way down the Meditation Trail from C3 Southern Red Oak Grove. On the north side of a small flat area you will see a restored chimney, the remains of the Seekers After Knowledge Cabin. The fireplace opening appears to be on the wrong side, but the cabin was facing north, built on a stilt foundation and overlooking the hillside. A rope ladder down below provided a means of crossing Ridley Creek from the Old Mill. The origin of the Seekers after Knowledge and the Cabin are both lost to history. No one, even lifelong residents of Rose Valley, appears to know the full story. While the dates of their beginning are unclear, the activities of the Seekers and the Cabin are well documented.

Chadwick Preserve POI C3 Seekers After Knowledge Cabin

The entire forest community here is unusual for Delaware County; it is a distinctly Northern Piedmont variant of Dry Oak–Heath Forest overlying gneiss bedrock. It is dominated by white oak, scarlet oak, northern red oak, black oak, black gum, and American beech. The sparse shrub layer consists of mountain-laurel and maple-leaf viburnum. The extremely sparse ground layer also includes isolated plants of poverty oat grass, partridgeberry, striped wintergreen, and white wood aster.There is no regeneration (seedlings or saplings) of any tree species or mountain-laurel. Adult mountain-laurels have a sharp browse line 4 to 5 feet above the ground and the few maple-leaf viburnum stems are dwarfed and have severely browsed tips. This stand of southern red oak is critically endangered because none of the oaks here have successfully reproduced for several decades. All seedlings of oaks, other trees, and mountain-laurel are eaten in winter by the artificially high local deer population.

Continue a short way down the Meditation Trail from C1 Spy Rock. You will enter a series of descending switchbacks into a narrow flat area. This is the Southern Red Oak Grove. There are a number of Sothern Red Oak here, identified by light patches in its reddish brown bark and a distinctive three pointed leaf with rounded base. One of the last indigenous stands in Pennsylvania of a state-endangered species, southern red oak, also called Spanish oak or Quercus falcata, occupies the ridgetop of Long Point, alongside trees of at least six other species.

Chadwick Preserve POI C2 Southern Red Oak Grove

The Dutch likley named Spionkop, their word meaning lookout hill. The most famous Spionkop are in South Africa (Boar War) and Nottinghamshire, England. We don't know whether it was the Minquas or traders who watched out over the valley. The indigenous people were known to set camp in protected locations with good views, such as a ridge, where they would be less susceptible to attack.Southeastern Pennsylvania is part of the Appalachian Piedmont, mostly gneiss and schist. The age of these rocks is a geological concept that generally indicates the length of time they've been in their current mineralogical state. For metamorphic rocks such as schist and gneiss, age means the approximate length of time since they were transformed by heat and pressure from some other kind of rock — in the case of these, mudstone or shale, which are sedimentary rocks — into their current form.Recent work by geologists at West Chester University and others indicate that our rock is around 390 million years old. Both are formed at high pressures and temperatures, but gneiss is formed at higher pressures and temperatures than schist. If you look closely, particularly on the next rock scramble below Spy Rock, you can find traces of mica within the layers of gneiss there. Further on, to the right at the top of the last switchback, you will find quartz.Some of the boulders in Chadwick have veins of white quartz and many of the smaller rocks on the surface throughout the borough are chunks of quartz, ranging in color from white to orange to brown. The orangish color comes from minute amounts of iron in the quartz, which oxidizes when exposed to air and water into rust. If you break the orange quartz rocks, they're usually white or even clear in the middle.

Begin you tour by proceeding up and around the start of Mediation Trail for about 25 yards. You will see a large flat rock outcropping on your left. This is Spy Rock. It faces north, and at one time likely provided a view of Ridley Creek upstream and down, the Minquas Trail going east-west. Long time residents who explored Long Point in their youth called it Spionkop.

Chadwick Wildlife Preserve

Chadwick Preserve POI C6 Giant Sycamore

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources