814-Lancastar Fanning, Saturday, February 13, 1988
II II
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Hopedell Farm in Valley Township, Chester County, has been in the Hope family
since 1743.
Keeping The Hopedell
BY MARJORIE KEEN
Chester Co. Correspondent
COATESVELLE Twenty
eight Hope family members were
present at the Pennsylvania State
Farm Show last month for
Hopedell Farm’s bicentennial rec
ognition. Hopes have occupied the
Valley Township farm ever since
Yorkshireman Thomas Hope was
granted 320 acres in 1743.
According to the land patent
granted by William Penn’s sons
John, Richard and Thomas in the
17th year of the reign of King
George 11, Hopedell Farm was
originally part of Sadsbury
Township.
Today’s keepers of the family
tradition are William and Ruth
Hope Handy, retired banker and
school teacher, respectively.
According to Ruth, she and her
twin sister, Jean, grew up as the
ninth generation of Hopes to
occupy Hopedell Farm. Their
children and grandchildren
traveled with them to Harrisburg
for the bicentennial award.
Their late father, one of several
Hopes named Thomas, operated a
dairy until 1963. For the past quar
ter century, another dairy farmer
has planted the fields in com and
hay. Either dairy heifers or beef
cattle graze in the meadows.
“Nothing worse for a farm than
being idle,” said Bill Handy.
Ruth remembered when her
father shipped milk by train from
Pomeroy to Philadelphia. “They
milked at four and they were up
there by 6:30. That’s where all the
affairs of the nation were taken
care of as the farmers waited for
the train,” she laughs.
After the Philadelphia dairy
changed hands, the Hopes took the
Ruth Hope Handy is in the ninth generation of Hopes
who’ve made their home at Hopedell Farm.
Tradition Alive
s vy, ifl'l
Ruth and Bill Handy sit under the sign that brought travel
ers to Hopedell Farm during the Great Depression.
milk to Christiana in a Ford pickup
truck. “Jean and I used to ride
among sometimes because we
always got a lollipop or an ice
cream cone,” Ruth reminisced.
Ten quart cans of milk from the
afternoon milking were stored
overnight in Hopedell Farm’s two
story springhouse. “It’s been spr
inging for over 200 years,” Bill
stated. Ruth helped carry water
from springhouse to farm house
before central plumbing was
installed when she was five years
old.
“Of course there was no bath
room, but that little storeroom had
>
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a great, big copper bathtub in it
with a wooden frame around it,”
Ruth related. “They used to have a
cistern here. They collected rain
water and heated that for the bath
tub and brought it upstairs. They
did the same for the washing
machine.”
The wood-shingled outhouse
still stands, one of the buildings
protected by Hopedell’s designa
tion as a national historic site.
Ruth pointed out the eighteenth
century walls of the original four
room stone house. Four William
Penn comer fireplaces provided
winter heat for the first genera
tions. A large addition in 1830-in
creased the house to its present
bedroom size.
The addition’s date was deter
mined by oral tradition and con
firmed by still-vivid wax fruit
under a large glass globe in
Hopedell’s dining room. Ruth
explained, “The year they built this
side of the house it was popular for
the ladies to make wax fruit
arrangements instead of quilt.
They’d become a little more well
to-do and had all the quilts they
needed, so they did things that
were a little on the luxurious side.”
Hopedell’s dining room table
stretches to seat two dozen for
Christmas dinner. Although Ruth
»*»*• (XI
-1,
(Turn to Page B 16)
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B&R Farm
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RD 1, Box 217 A
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Ivan J Zook
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Canton, PA
Hess Farm Equipment
717-673-5143
Carlisle, PA
Paul Shovers, Inc
35 East Willow Street
717-243-2686
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Clugston
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RD 1
717-263-4103
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George N Gross, Inc
RD 2, Dover, PA
717-292-1673
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Messick Farm
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Rt 283 - Rheem's Exit
717-367-1319
Gettysburg, PA
Vinglmg Implements,
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3291 Taneytown Rd
717-359-4848
Graencaetle, PA
Meyers
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400 N Antrim Way
P O Box 97
717-597-2176
Halifax, PA
Sweigard Bros
RD 3, Box 13
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Shartlesville
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RD 1, Box 1392
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Hanover, PA
Sheets Brothers, Inc
1061 Carlisle St
Hanover, PA 17331
717-632-3660
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Dependable Motor Co
East Mam Street
215-273-3131
215-273-3737
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Norman D Clark
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717-734-3682
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Farnsworth Farm
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103 Cemetery Street
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Keller Bros
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RD 7, Box 405
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Paul Shovers, Inc
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RD #3
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ABC. Groff, Inc
110 South Railroad
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M&R Equipment Inc
PO Box 16
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101 South Lime Street
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R D 2, Box 66
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Walter G Coale, Inc
2849-53
Churchville Rd
301 734-7722
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Ceresville
Ford New Holland, Inc
Rt 26 East
301 662-4197
Outside MD,
800 331-9122
Washington, NJ
Frank Rymon & Sons
201-689-1464
Woodatown, NJ
Owen Supply Co
Broad Street &
East Avenue
609-769-0308