Toughkenamon Village
At the April 20th, 2020 Board of Supervisors meeting, the Village of Toughkenamon Streetscape and Transportation Improvement Plan was approved by Resolution Number 823.
The Village of Toughkenamon, encompassing the crossroads of Baltimore Pike and Newark Road, is an integral part of the community of New Garden Township, and the future of the Village was identified as a priority focus area in the Township's Comprehensive Plan update in 2018. In fulfilling the vision as set forth in the Comprehensive Plan, the Township desired to address issues in the Village relating to traffic congestion, speeding and cut-through traffic, limited pedestrian and bicycle connectivity, insufficient parking availability, lack of consistent community identity, enhancement of village character, and the need to expand community destinations and services. The Board of Supervisors of New Garden Township, with the assistance of a Steering Committee, Township staff, and planning consultants from McMahon Associates, Inc. and Thomas Comitta Associates, Inc., have created an instrument to assist in future planning for the Village, called the "Village of Toughkenamon: Streetscape and Transportation Improvement Plan. The Steering Committee, which was comprised of five current or former Village residents, five owners or employees of businesses within the Village, two members of the Board, and two members of the Township's staff, as well as advisory members from the Chester County Planning Commission and the Transportation Management Association of Chester County, guided the development of the Plan. Public participation in the creation of the Plan, including at Steering Committee meetings, presentations to the Board of Supervisors, multiple community meetings, stakeholder interviews, a youth focus group meeting, and during a 30-day public comment period, was instrumental in ensuring that interested parties had an opportunity to provide input on the contents of the Plan. The goal of the Plan is to plan for ways to reenergize Toughkenamon into a village with a variety of restaurants and shops that serve the local community, a diversity of housing options for all ages, and attractive open spaces and streetscapes that welcome visitors and residents to the heart of New Garden Township
History of Toughkenamon
Toughkenamon's earliest recorded history dates to an 18th-century surveyor's map identifying the valley between two ridges as "Doch ran Amon." According to 19th-century accounts, Dochranamon is the literal representation of the Lenape word, "firebrand," and was affixed to the area based on Native American legends, legends about repelling an invading tribe by using firebrands. Firebrands, and wooden torches, may also have been used for signaling allies on neighboring promontories. The origin of the name is shrouded in mystery; it might even have been the name of the tribe that inhabited the valley's northern high ground.
The name Toughkenamon became official in 1868 when a post office opened at the railway station.
Toughkenamon owes its genesis to the coming of the Philadelphia and Baltimore Railroad; it was in fact a railroad town. Prior to 1852, there were only five buildings clustered around the intersection of Newark Road and the Baltimore Pike. There were three houses, Warner Paxson's general store and a tavern known as the Hammer and Trowel. From these modest beginnings, Toughkenamon began to grow; 14 houses went up in 1860, and in 1870, the population numbered about 300 persons.
One man, Isaac Slack, is generally acknowledged to be the "Father of Toughkenamon." In 1852, knowing that the railroad was to come through the valley; Slack began to buy land and build houses. In 1855, he purchased a farmstead of 132 acres south of Baltimore Pike; here he built a brick wheel and spoke factory, a stone steam-powered sawmill, and houses for his workers. For Slack's enterprises to succeed he needed to encourage the railroad to make a regular stop. Slack built a station, installed a water tank, and deeded the surrounding land to the railroad. By 1863, trains were carrying ship timbers to Boston and thousands of handles for axes, picks, and hatchets were being shipped to Philadelphia and New York. Orders for spokes and carriage wheels were coming from all across the country.
Slack's small tracts soon sprouted a flour and feed mill, blacksmith shop, wheelwright shop, broom factory, saddle and harness shop, feldspar mill, a creamery, and a brickyard. The amenities of a village followed: Hannah Cope opened a private day and boarding school in 1868 and in 1877, a public school house was built. Harry Owens purchased and enlarged the general store in 1872, a Presbyterian church was established in 1874, and not to be outdone by other towns, Ed Yetter laid down a half-mile racetrack in 1875. Telephone service came to the village in 1885; electricity with streetlights followed in 1893, and in 1905, a trolley was built along the Baltimore Pike from Kennett Square to Oxford.
If in the period up through the mid-1880s Toughkenamon's economy depended on Slack's factories, after 1882, Sharpless' Creamery was the big business in town. Making cottage cheese and butter, it processes between 3000 and 5000 pounds of milk daily. By the early and mid-20th century, however, the town's economy was tied to the mushroom industry with a basket factory, mushroom supply houses, and Losito's mushroom cannery providing jobs. Many families of Italian descent replaced the Scotch-Irish workers of Isaac Slack's day. Gradually, the town became a country village with homes, the Presbyterian Church, DiFilippo's general store, Martelli's bakery, a barber shop, the post office, and a few businesses to support the mushroom industry. Then, toward the end of the century Toughkenamon's demographics again shifted; Hispanic families, many of them mushroom workers, began to move to the village making their homes in houses built more than a hundred years ago. - History provided by: Dr. Margaret Jones