Many old homes along the Main Line have names, such as Ardrossan and Foxcatcher. And for most of the 20th century, there was Boxmead, sitting along the west side of Rt 252 right before the Wyola split. Today the property is part of the Liseter development, but only remnants exist of the original farm property.
The Joseph Lewis family owned the 100-acre farm with a late 18th-century stone house and two springhouses that later became Boxmead for most of the 19 th century. The farm then changed hands a few times. In 1909, John Rulon-Miller, a regular at the Radnor Hunt, owned the farm and named it Wyola Farm. By 1918, the Hecksher family had bought the farm, renamed it Boxmead, and were advertising for a “single sober man for general farm work” for $45/month plus board. These sober tenant farmers likely lived in a smaller stone tenant house on the property.
In 1922, Gertrude S. Hecksher of Boxmead Farm married Alfred A. Biddle, with a Who’s Who of prominent debs in attendance including Ellen Mary Cassatt and Hope Montgomery Scott of Ardrossan. The newlywed Biddles moved in to Boxmead and raised four children at the farm. Gertrude died too young in 1942 at age 47. Alfred, a WW I veteran and stockbroker, lived on at the farm until 1967. By then, his oldest daughter Constance Biddle had married Sydney Francis Biddle and they were raising their daughter Alexandra at the farm.
When Constance died in 2005, her estate was auctioned off. A news article said that while she was not the most flamboyant member of the old Philadelphia family, she lived a “quietly elegant life”, surrounded by “a fantastic collection of Chinese and Japanese export porcelains that descend in the family from Captain Nicholas Biddle, a Naval hero from the late 18 th century.”
After her death, a developer had purchased the adjoining Liseter Farm, and then bought Boxmead Farm from her Estate. The beautiful old stone farmhouse, barn, tenant house and springhouses sat empty and deteriorating for several years, awaiting their fate. The farmhouse and barn were demolished in 2013. The tenant house was preserved and used as the construction office while the Liseter homes were being built. Empty again, the tenant house found a new use. Residents on that side of the development had the old stone farmhouse renovated, to be used as a sheltered mailbox area, management office, and community room with a small kitchen for the various clubs that meet in the community. It is wonderful when we make the effort to find new uses for these old stone witnesses to our past.
For more history on Newtown Square, Delaware County, and membership information, please visit our website at: https://nshistory.org/