Parker's Ford

Along an early river trail on the Schuylkill's west bank in Chester County, a group of mid-eighteenth-century buildings forms the Parker's Ford complex. The tavern, dated 1766 and built by Edward Parker, is two stories of local red sandstone with a kitchen wing, a courtyard, and a two-level cellar with unusual log-and-rubble basement framing. Nearby stand a stable building, a house dated 1801 built by Henry Parker and his wife Susannah, and other early houses. The complex grew from a grist and saw mill recorded by 1720. Its significance rests on its role as a roadside inn on the Great Road from Philadelphia to Reading, and on its visit by George Washington's army, which crossed the river at the ford in September 1777 and used the tavern as temporary headquarters. Later, the Schuylkill River Canal and the Pennsylvania Railroad shaped its use and decline, and the complex is regarded as a rare surviving example of a colonial tavern complex connected to Pennsylvania transportation history.