More Than a Public Park
History, mischief, healing, music, learning, and life lessons: Under the specimen trees of Marshall Square Park
By Gail Guterl
Zoo, arboretum, plant nursery, reservoir, concert venue, public rallying place! Hard to believe all this was once packed into 5.5 acres on the highest point of ground in West Chester. Marshall Square Park has a rich history that includes Revolutionary War heroes, Civil War soldiers, philanthropists, a 1901 controversy that would make present-day environmentalists blanch, local drunks, young lovers, and nature enthusiasts.
The history of Marshall Square Park even involves Chester County Hospital; the park was visible from hospital windows when the first hospital, a 10-bed dispensary, was built on the north side of East Marshall Street in 1892. Newspaper articles of the day recount patients sitting under the trees enjoying the peacefulness of the park.
Despite being a place for quiet contemplation, the park has seen its excitement. One major change was the filling in of the town reservoir in the southeast area of the park and the construction and dedication in 1887 on that site of a 50-foot high Civil War monument to the 97th Regiment. The other was a desecration of the park in 1901 by two borough councilman, in the name of “beautifying it.”
Marshall Square Park began in 1841 as a town reservoir; at the same time, additional acreage was acquired from the Hoopes family for a future park to emulate the one on Washington Square in Philadelphia. In 1848, local botanists and horticulturists, Dr. William Darlington, David Townsend and Joshua Hoopes were appointed by the burgesses (now called councilmen) to oversee new park plantings. They leased the square to Paschall Morris for 8 years as a plant nursery if he cultivated trees and shrubs to be planted in the park. The three men named the square after local botanist Humphry Marshall (1722-1801), who had lived in what is now Marshallton.
When Morris’ lease expired, borough council lost interest in the property. After more than 20 years of complaints from residents about the lack of paths; dilapidated, unsafe conditions at the reservoir, and no place to sit, the borough finally began to pay attention and in 1877 a park commissioner was appointed to clean up, improve, and maintain the square.
Botanist Josiah Hoopes, the first commissioner and a relation to the founder of the park, worked wonders. In 1878, a rockery was installed near the reservoir, as well as a fountain and seats. Plants and flowers were laid out throughout the park; a 35 foot by 12-foot Swiss cottage summer house — designed after the Swiss pavilion at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park — was built with an annex for tools and restrooms, and two “umbrella” style rustic houses were constructed in another corner. Four large vases were placed around the park. A catalogue of trees and bushes in 1885, the same year benches were installed, revealed more than 160 varieties. Plans were drawn for brick swales to drain water out of the park and many of these swales are still in existence.
Around 1887, the deteriorating and unsafe reservoir was filled in and a granite Civil War monument to the 97th regiment was constructed on the site. The dedication ceremony must have been spectacular. Bands from all over the region participated leading a parade of at least 150 different groups and/or private citizens.
The next big change occurred in 1889, when a small zoo was installed that included white rats, two monkeys named Sullivan and Kilrain which the zookeeper could not tell apart, alligators, rabbits, raccoons, guinea pigs, opossums and red and gray squirrels. A park fountain had carp, turtles and other types of fish. One year a mink found its way to the fountain pool surrounding the park’s signature 5-tier fountain and feasted on fish.
The park became so popular it was not uncommon for local newspapers to run articles about it on any given day, even when nothing was happening. No event was too small to document: it was noted when dogwoods were in bloom, red squirrels had had kits, or new fish were added to the fountain. Even park visitors were reported, such as in August 1886 when two Chippewa tribe members came to town. Apparently they were among 290 Native Americans from St. Paul, MN, who were to attend school in Pennsylvania that winter. An Oct. 6, 1893 newspaper article even noted the appearance of the then-new Chester County Hospital: “Since the walls and roof of the Chester County Hospital have been completed, the building is a thing of beauty, and consequently a joy which may be expected to last. A portion of the third story is plastered. As yet the window sash have [sic] not been placed in position.”
Year after year the park was improved through small and large projects. However, in 1901, in an action that shocked the community, the park was disfigured by two borough leaders. City councilmen Joseph N. Marshall and E.H. Brown (their names are significant to this story) decided without consulting their brethren that the park needed cedar trees. They purchased 75 trees and without warning ordered the removal of all trees, shrubs and flower beds in the park and the planting of the cedars. What a scandal! The two were accused of “marshalling” the greenery and making everything “brown.” To add insult to injury they split the $217.50 nursery bill in half so they wouldn’t have to get authorization for the expense and could be reimbursed from petty cash.
When the councilmen were asked why they acted secretly they said the flower beds cost too much money to maintain and the shrubbery was “used by unsavory characters for unknown, but no doubt, unsavory reasons.” (Possibly they were also referring to a perennial complaint about some park visitors having imbibed “too much liquid enthusiasm.”) Marshall and Brown’s contention was the cedars would last a long time. Sadly, within 2 years all the trees were dead.
Despite this meddling, the park survived and by 1909 an arc electric light system illuminated new plants, trees and flowers, its zoo and 65 bright red benches and summer seats. Eventually, a playground, basketball and volleyball courts were added to the park.
In 2001, the Friends of Marshall Square Park formed to support and restore the park to its early glory. They have renovated the Swiss cottage and restored the elaborate 5-tier fountain at the northeast corner. This fountain, first installed in 1889 with a ball mechanism that caused alternating patterns of water spray, was removed from the park around the 1950s, stored in the borough maintenance yard and then disappeared. Years later it resurfaced as a sculptural piece on a farm in Westtown Township; then was purchased by a homeowner for his estate just outside West Chester. The fountain was displayed on his property for several years, but after he sold the house, new owners dismantled and stored it behind a barn. Learning of this, the park organization offered to take it off the owners’ hands, recovering 3 of the fountain’s 5 bowls. A fourth had to be reconstructed because no one knows what happened to it. The fifth bowl, which is 8 feet across had been buried at the site of the original fountain, as was the pool that surrounded the fountain. So once again, the newly restored, lighted fountain dances “merrily in that shady retreat,” as it was described in a 1932 article in the Daily Local News.