This Pennsylvania village was incorporated as a borough on 2 May 1853.[1] After declining in the late 1800s, it was reabsorbed into East Nottingham and Lower Oxford townships in 1914.[2][5]
Hopewell's founding is directly linked to the history of the Dickey family, who arrived in East Nottingham Township from Northern Ireland in the 1730s.[2][5][7] The first Dickey, Samuel Dickey, Sr., acquired a property in the township and built an estate he called “Palmyra”.[2][5][7] His son, Samuel, Jr., inherited the estate and expanded it to include a carpenter shop and a brick oven.[5] Samuel Dickey, Jr., raised four sons: John; Samuel, III; Ebenezer (father of John Miller Dickey);[2] and David.[2][5] At his passing, he split Palmyra between Samuel, III, and David.[5] Samuel, III, continued the property’s development and built a small cotton mill in 1809.[5] By 1812, Samuel, III, had built another cotton mill northeast of Palmyra on Tweed Creek, the future site of Hopewell.[2][5] David had also built mills in this area for manufacturing flour and wood products.[2][5][3] The two brothers later combined their commercial efforts and formed the Hopewell Cotton Works.[5] Around 1816, Ebenezer joined his brothers’ enterprise, and the group began doing business as S. E. & D. Dickey.[2][5]
The Hopewell Cotton Works originally produced cotton yarn, but at its height also produced around one hundred different varieties of fabric.[5] The mill began to recruit skilled labor, such as carpentry and masonry, which drew talent and settlers to the region.[2][3] As their business thrived, the brothers built new estates around the mills and began building homes for their workers to rent.[2][5] Hopewell received a general store at this time as well.[5] Hopewell’s public school opened in 1826, and, in 1830, the Hopewell Post Office opened within the general store.[5] When David and Ebenezer died in 1831, Samuel assumed full control of the Hopewell Works.[5]
Village resident Thompson Hudson opened Hopewell Academy in 1834, a private school he operated on his property.[5]
Samuel Dickey, III, died in 1835 and left most of his businesses to his sons Samuel J., Ebenezer J., and David J.[2][5] At the time of Samuel’s death, the Hopewell Works consisted of two cotton mills, a sawmill, a gristmill, the general store, a wheelwright shop, a blacksmith shop, and a machine shop.[2][5]
The new generation of Dickeys, known commercially as S. J. Dickey and Brothers, began buying up large swaths of farmland in the region.[2][5][3] The brothers were accomplished farmers, and Ebenezer J. even patented a seed drill he had invented to ease the planting of crops.[2][7] He also patented a “butter worker” that he claimed could produce one hundred pounds of butter in fifteen minutes.[2][5][7]
The first Hopewell Academy shuttered in 1841, but a former teacher, Jesse C. Dickey opened his own educational institution shortly thereafter.[2][5] His school, also called Hopewell Academy, offered lessons in mathematics, Latin, Greek, botany, chemistry, and many other subjects.[2] The academy offered an education equivalent to two years of college and drew students from all over southern Chester County.[2][5][3]
Hopewell continued to prosper; and, in 1848, residents of the village petitioned the county government to shift the border of Lower Oxford Township south to include all of Hopewell in one municipality.[5] When their effort failed, they petitioned for Hopewell to receive borough status.[5][3] This succeeded, and two square miles were erected from Lower Oxford and East Nottingham Townships on 2 May 1853 to form the Borough of Hopewell.[2][5]
By 1860, the Hopewell Mill had become the fourth most profitable mill in Chester County; however, 1860 was also the year that marked the beginning of Hopewell’s decline.[2][3] In the 1850s, Oxford and Hopewell had been similar in size, but this changed when the Philadelphia and Baltimore Central Railroad was laid in the region.[3] The railroad bypassed Hopewell and instead went through the center of Oxford.[3] The population of Oxford ballooned, and Hopewell’s began to decline.[3] Many people left the town for Oxford, where they saw more personal opportunities.[2] The second Hopewell Academy closed its doors in 1861, leaving the town with only its small public schoolhouse.[5] The beginning of the Civil War also damaged the borough’s prospects.[2] S. J. Dickey and Brothers suddenly went in early 1862 due wartime cotton shortages and years of mismanagement.[2][5][7][3] Its assets were sold off, and despite some of the works reopening, agriculture became the main driver of the Hopewell economy.[2][7]
In the late 1860s and early 1870s, there was some short-lived hope of a revival.[5] The Hopewell Cotton Works briefly rebounded around 1869, and the borough finally received a railroad connection in 1872 with the completion of the Peach Bottom Railway.[2][5] Another positive development occurred in 1875 when the Hopewell Lyceum was founded.[2] The social club drew large crowds but did not disrupt the general trend of decline that the borough was facing.[2]
By 1870, almost all of the Dickey family had left Hopewell, with many resettling in Oxford.[5] The Chester County Milk Company, located in Hopewell, shuttered by 1879, and the grist mill burned down at this time as well.[2] The Hopewellian identity began to die, as residents increasingly considered themselves members of the greater Oxford and Nottingham communities as opposed to a distinct Hopewell one.[2] By 1897, thirty-five of the forty-five people in Hopewell who were eligible to vote held some borough office.[5][3] Even women held some positions in the local government, which was unheard of at the time.[3] The dying borough had become little more than a small cluster of buildings.[5][3]
Some residents of Hopewell, led by the president of Hopewell’s Board of Health, Elwood Webster, began petitioning the Chester County government to revoke the borough's charter in the mid-1890s.[2][3] They were unhappy with the high borough taxes and the poor state of the village's roads.[3][8] The borough officers’ salaries were expensive, and the cost of hosting local elections once a year was high as well.[3] Those in favor of maintaining the borough were led by Squire Thompson Hudson.[3] The first effort at annulment ultimately failed.[2]
The second attempt, begun in 1913, was led by Burgess David F. Cope, while Hudson again commanded the opposition.[1] Two thirds of taxable residents had to agree to annulment for the petition to go to the county, and the signatures were successfully collected.[1] After Cope’s death in mid-1913, borough resident W. D. Harra assumed the task of presenting the formal petition for annulment.[1] He brought his work before the county court in West Chester on August 25, 1913.[9] Despite Thompson Hudson’s best efforts to change the court’s mind, West Chester granted annulment on December 23.[2][8] Squire Thompson Hudson continued to appeal the decision into August of 1914, but it was to no avail.[10]
The Borough of Hopewell was dissolved in early 1914, and its territory was returned to East Nottingham and Lower Oxford Townships.[2][5]
Many of the buildings in the former borough, such as the Academy and Hopewell Post Office, are now contributing properties of the Hopewell Historic District.[2] It is now also home to Hanover Farms, Hopewell UMC and Boy Scouts of America Troop 8.[4][6]
