Chadds Ford Historic District

Chadds Ford is a village at the crossroads of U.S. Route 1 and Pennsylvania Route 100 in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Its origins go back to 1703, when Francis Chadsey, to whom William Penn granted the land, built a grist mill on the Brandywine Creek. His son John built a stone house and springhouse before 1726, and in 1731 he was licensed to keep a tavern in the brick house. Five years later he received a license to operate a ferry across the Brandywine on the road to Nottingham. The village's buildings date mainly from the early 1800s and later, including the Chads Ford Inn, built between 1807 and 1810, and the Merchant Mill, built by George Brinton in 1864. Most of the village's buildings are modest. The district is significant because it preserves the character of a small rural hamlet and because its land was part of the American encampment during the Battle of the Brandywine in September 1777.