{"nrhp_refnum":"87001250","name":"Taylor-Cope Historic District","other_names":["See Also:Cope's Bridge","Taylor House"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"890--1100 blk. of Strasburg Rd./PA 162","address_restricted":false,"city":"Marshallton","county":"Chester County","state":"PA","lat":39.961470118500046,"lon":-75.6419418684912,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1987-07-16","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Agriculture","Exploration/Settlement","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A rural historic district of farmsteads, a former inn, and the industrial settlement of Copesville in the Taylor Run valley and along the East Branch Brandywine Creek, in East Bradford Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania. It includes Cope's Bridge, a stone-arch bridge built in 1807 across the Brandywine on the Strasburg Road.","why_significant":"The district is argued to be significant for its early settlement by Quaker families, including the first permanent brick house of the first settler, built in 1724. It is also significant for its collection of rural residential and barn architecture spanning the early 18th to early 20th centuries, and for documenting changing agricultural practices from wheat farming to cattle and dairy production. Its Cope family foundry at Copesville adds an industrial dimension.","narrative":"Along the Taylor Run valley and the East Branch Brandywine Creek in East Bradford Township, Chester County, lies a rural district of farmsteads, a former inn, and the Copesville industrial settlement. Quaker settler Abiah Taylor took up about 430 acres here around 1702 and built a mill on Taylor Run by 1719. In 1724 he replaced a log house with a brick mansion, which survives with very good integrity and displays English Colonial features such as Flemish bond brickwork and a steep gable roof. The district holds sixteen contributing resources, dating from 1724 to 1906, including barns that trace the shift from 18th-century wheat farming to 19th-century cattle and early 20th-century dairy production. Cope's Bridge, a three-arch stone bridge completed in 1807, carries the Strasburg Road across the Brandywine. The Cope family's foundry at Copesville, later Edge T. Cope and Sons, supplied iron castings for regional projects.","period_of_significance":"c. 1700-1920","architect_builder":"Abiah Taylor and others","architectural_style":null,"criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Contributing resources are used as dwellings, barns and a bridge; the one non-contributing building is a former gas station converted to an office.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:32.445703-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/87001250.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/87001250/3000c5bd19-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/87001250/3000c5bd19-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Timothy Colgan","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Abiah_Taylor_House.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Timothy Colgan</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Abiah_Taylor_House.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71995315","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor%E2%80%93Cope_Historic_District","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7689834"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/chester-county/taylor-cope-historic-district-87001250/"}