History of the Locust Grove School

Initial construction details for the Locust Grove Schoolhouse are unclear. In an 1816 deed of Indenture, male inhabitants of East Marlborough, West Bradford, and Pennsbury Townships created what would later become the Locust Grove School. The initial parcel of land was given for the cost of 1 cent each year for 99 years from William Cloud. This deed supports the belief that the Locust Grove Schoolhouse was built that year on the newly deeded land. Attendance books beginning December 1855, known as The Register: Locust Grove School or Teacher’s Monthly Reports, confirm the existence of the Locust Grove School, as an entity, by that year, but these records do not indicate where the school met or any description of the schoolhouse. The 1873 map of Pocopson Township shows three masonry schoolhouses; of these three, two remain today.[2] One of the two remaining is the Locust Grove Schoolhouse.[3]




[1] Records of the Court of Quarter Session, Chester County, PA: Townships, School and Election District Papers, Chester County Historical Society.

[2] Pocopson School Board Minutes indicate that by 1866 three schoolhouses existed.

[3] The other is the Lenape School (previously known as the Pocopson School and Darlington’s School) constructed in 1882, currently used as a residence.