Celebrate with the Minquas Trail Walk on Sept. 30
Rose Valley is kicking off the second half of its 100th anniversary celebration with a hike through the woods.
Guests are invited Sept. 30 to join the Minquas Trail Walk, a one-hour guided nature and education tour of Chadwick Preserve. The excursion will be punctuated with stops highlighting the historical significance of the trail and ongoing projects to preserve it.
“The Minquas Trail Walk will honor the earliest inhabitants of Rose Valley,” said Rose Valley Museum curator Ryan Berley. “The walk will also attempt to interpret the histories of the European settlers over the past 300-plus years.”
Founded in 1901 with the vision “the art that is life,” Rose Valley’s original Arts and Crafts community was incorporated into a municipality on Dec. 23, 1923.
The 100th anniversary steering committee, composed
of representatives of borough council and various borough organizations, developed a roster of events to honor their heritage, celebrate their present and project their future. The walk is sponsored by the borough, museum and Rose Valley Centennial Foundation.
The 80-mile, eastwest
trail, a 17th-century trade route connecting the Susquehanna and Schuylkill rivers, was the primary path for fur trading with the Minquas — or Susquehannock — people. Dutch, Swedish and English settlers fought one another to control it.
“The Minquas Trail was an important connector for commerce during the 17th and 18th centuries,” said Berley. “Dutch, Swedish and English traded European wares to the Native Americans bringing beaver pelts and other indigenous goods from the North and West via waterways including Ridley Creek that fed into the Delaware River.”
Attendees will meet at the museum, where a historic timeline and display of photos, descriptions, trail walk maps and handouts will get them in the Minquas mood. Guests will be scheduled in groups by the half-hour and bused to Chadwick Preserve.
The walk will proceed down the trail to Ridley Creek, returning on Meditation (Ridge) Trail, with presentations along the way.
Friends of the Swedish Cabin will display artifacts and discuss the various traders. Museum representatives will talk about Lenape (Delaware Indian) history and culture and Darby Friends Meeting will review
the contributions of William Penn, the Quakers and the Vernon brothers, who settled in presentday Rose Valley.
Representatives of Hedgerow Theatre will portray Arts and Crafts founder Will Price and his wife, Emma, who in the 1880s established the social club Seekers of Knowledge. They will present a theatrical reading of his work of the same name.
The final stop will return walkers to the 21st century, where members of the Rose Valley Environmental Advisory Council will review its projects.
The council, working with volunteers, organizations and professionals, has been seeking to stabilize the trails and restore the Chadwick and neighboring Saul wildlife preserves through invasive control, reintroducing native plants and completing watershed and stormwater work.
Rose Valley Mayor Bill Hale, who walked the trail in 1998 as part of the borough’s 75th anniversary celebration, will serve as a guide for the 100th. He is looking forward to introducing guests to its natural features.
“From the top of the ridge you can look up the creek to Media on one side and down the creek to Chester on the other,” he said. “It is a very cool little piece of history in a very interesting part of the world.”