Spackman-Davis Farm has sat quietly and watched as agrarian life gave way to cities and industry, as the 20th Century invited the World to War not once but twice, and as hundreds of acres of neighboring farmland were gobbled up in search of the "perfect suburbia". Tucked away, out of sight, nestled behind ancient trees, on just the right stretch of a curve in the road where if you weren't looking for it, you would never see it.
Born before the Revolution, the story of how it changed hands, from Jane Parke to Isaac Spackman to Mary Davis to Caln Township is revolutionary in its own right.
In 1763, before remarrying, widow Mary Edge-Parke finalized possibly the earliest prenup in Chester County history, allowing her to will this land to her sons. In 1785, her son Jacob sold the land to former indentured servant, an immigrant farmer fleeing Hessian raids in West Bradford. And an early American success story began.
Isaac Spackman was born in Wiltshire England, not far from Calne England, the original home of Caln's first settlers. In 1804 Isaac built most of what stands on the land today -the stone and frame bank barn (now considered one of if not the largest in Chester County), a 3-story embankment building to house a springhouse, smokehouse, and eventually a one room schoolhouse, the stable, and root cellar. His 1809 addition to the store farmhouse doubled its size. It is believed the oldest section of the farmhouse was built in 1767, though the inscription on the top of the east wall is 1776. Whether it was built by Jacob Park, or by Isaac Spackman is open to debate as tax records from the time were often inaccurate. Since the Spackman family came to Caln during the revolution, it's entirely possible that Isaac was a tenant farmer and the family were lodged in the old house until he could secure the funds to purchase it in 1785. Hopefully, this mystery will one day be resolved.
Isaac and Susannah were Quaker, (the farm's western border abuts the 1726 Caln Quaker Meetinghouse and cemetery now listed on the National Register of Historic Places). With 8-children to feed, he and wife Susannah struggled but managed to have enough for themselves, and enough to share with others, all the while building a legacy to last the test of time. Susannah passed in 1818, Isaac followed in 1823.
Make a note of this, their daughter Mary went on to marry William Davis. This will help explain things later.
Son Thomas would inherit the farm. His first wife and child died during childbirth. With his second wife Hannah they had 6-children (5-girls and 1-boy). Thomas added the schoolroom to the smokehouse/springhouse to ensure the children would have a proper education (it's hard to believe that a teacher and up to 5-children fit inside that tiny space). He would later serve as an early school director in Caln Twp. while daughter Amanda went on to a career in education. But that part of the story comes later...
Thomas and Hannah befriended neighbors Graver and Hanna Marsh, strong abolitionists, and the pathway to freedom knew this land to be a friend. He grew wealth from the land and instilled Isaac’s strong Quaker roots in his children. Meanwhile routes of a different kind were being planted to carry his bounty in all directions. The Kings Highway became an important thoroughfare for goods; taverns and inns sprung up along the way. By the time of his death in 1846 they were wealthy farmers.
Thomas’s widow Hannah took the farm by the reigns and continued to grow the operation. Their only son and heir to the legacy left farming to become a business leader. Daughter Amanda, educated in that small room between the spring and smokehouse, went on to become an early leader in public education. She taught for 20-years at the Chestnut Dell School, and stayed on until her death in 1924. She would be the 3rd woman to save the family farm. Her brother’s 1895 death left the land to his sons, who could have evicted her and sold out. But they let her stay on. Was it her tenacity that willed her cousins to not evict her? We may never know, but under her care for 29-years it became the longest single-lineage family farm in township history, a testament to her fortitude and love for the land.
By 1929 only Cousin Horace remained, and the long family tree had branched out in too many directions to keep going. Spackmans now had careers in business, insurance, and finance; for them, farming was a thing of the past. Horace sold everything. And that should have been the end of this story. But in 1936 Mary and Penrose Davis bought it back. Back? You sound confused. How could Mary and Penrose have brought the farm back into the Spackman family? Remember the Mary Spackman I asked you to make a note of? The sister of Isaac who married William Davis? Well, Penrose Davis was her great-grandson. Penrose, President of the Downingtown Iron Works and Nation Bank of Coatesville became a gentleman farmer. Mary, a retired schoolteacher gave birth to daughter Marion and son Penrose Jr. Sadly, the later went to the Pacific in WWII as an officer and never made it back from Guadalcanal. Trees were planted in his memory along the border walkway at the Western School. Daughter Marion Davis married Theodore Griffith. He had a very successful legal career - served as President of the Chester County Bar Association, senior partner with Griffith, Morton, and Buckley, and was a Downingtown Borough Councilman, but he liked living in Downingtown. stayed on the farm with her daughter Marianne Griffith, eventually the farmstead became Marianne’s. Her love for her grandparents and their land kept her from cashing in. Instead, she sold it to Caln Township, preserved for perpetuity. Today Marianne lives at Kendall’s Crossing. If you’re lucky, you’ll meet her at an event and she’ll paint your imagination with vivid stories of years gone by, and memories of past generations who some say still walk the halls at Spackman-Davis Farm.
Over the centuries a long and fascinating tale has unraveled on this land, and the story goes on forever.
To walk among its acres is to be at one with time. Along its long, winding entrance drive, if you listen closely, the rhythmic clip-clop of horses still echo. Under the centuries old Willow Trees you can hear whispers of stories that predate our nation - tales of courage and freedom, spirit and faith, peace and joy.
Mecca of all things Chester County, the keystone and beating heart of our American story. Spackman-Davis Farm embodies all that our nation has been, and all it still can be.
While we focused here on the time from Penn to the present, the fact is that long before colonization, the Lenape flourished here. This land bore witness as the Lenape and their ways were uprooted by colonization and the principals of Quakerism, a dynamic shift no less staggering than when the crown was supplanted by the Declaration of Independence.