All About Ithan

This column is being rerun because the fire that took place April 4 at Bloomfield, the mansion that was once part of the vast estate (which stretched over much of South Ithan Avenue) of George H. McFadden, Jr.

The property is named in this Your Town and My Town column (in the last paragraph below).

Like Wayne, Ithan was once rolling farm land. Unlike Wayne it has never grown into a consolidated and thriving community – on the other hand it has always maintained much of its rural charm, with the Conestoga road running through it and with the old Ithan Store the center of community interest. Conestoga road itself dates back more than two hundred years now, having originally been an Indian trail from the Delaware River to the Susquehanna River.

In the middle and latter part of the 19th century, after the Indians had mostly disappeared from the Pennsylvania scene, but automobiles, telephones and electricity had not yet appeared, a great part of Ithan belonged to the J. Hunter Ewing estate. Radnor was then called Morgan’s Corner, where the Chew family owned most of the land. Among other landowners were the Bories, the McCreas, the Matlacks, the Parks and the Meigs. The houses on Radnor road near the railroad, which are still occupied, were then called “Cork Row”.

Ithan itself was then a group of straggline buildings and huge farms. Going west on Conestoga road, the traveller came to the old Quaker Meeting, still an historic landmark to this day. To the East of the meeting house was the Dr. Blackfan home, while beyond it was the general store, now known as the Ithan Store operated by Robert Curley. Nearby were the saddler’s, the wheelwright’s and the blacksmith’s shops. Homes in this vicinity were those of the Ericksons, the Sloans, the Joyces and the Joseph Childs. Then there were the , one of the most historic road houses in the vicinity, and the Odd Fellows Hall, the latter the Isaac Fields property.

 Near Five Points was the pottery plant. Swinging from there in a southwesterly direction there were few houses until the Baptist Church was reached. Near there were the homes of the Heagys, the Lawrence Rameys, the Greens, the Litzenbergs, the Charles Pughs and the Dan Abrams. The latter was later purchased by W. Hinckle Smith, while the vast McFadden property was once Joseph Worrell’s grist mill.

Read the July 7, 1950 column in its entirety here.