A descendant of the Barnard family asked the Pocopson Township supervisors to consider turning the historic Barnard House into a Quaker Heritage Center.
Loraine Lucas read a letter at Monday’s meeting on behalf of the Barnard family’s relatives and friends, asking that it be considered one of the options in the feasibility study currently underway by GKO Architects.
“We feel it was important to identify the interest of the family for the record here tonight,” Lucas read. “Relatives and friends of the Barnard family would like to propose an option and enter into negotiations for their pledge of the restoration, maintenance and usage of the house as a Quaker Heritage Center of the Pocopson Township. We admire the hard work and efforts the Pocopson Historic Committee has completed on the Locust Grove Schoolhouse over the years by maintaining and improving a historic structure with little financial impact to the township taxpayers. Our intent is to follow a similar approach.”
Chester County transferred 68 acres and the historic Eusebius Barnard House to the township in 2008. A steering committee to discuss options for the property met from 2009 to 2015. Because of mounting costs to repair the historic house, a decision on what to do with the property was delayed while the supervisors met with county and township officials and mulled a feasibility study. One of the ideas for the building was as a future home for the township.
In July 2017, Pocopson supervisors awarded GKO the bid for a feasibility study. In October, the supervisors announced that the Barnard House property was “not feasible as a township building,” according to minutes from the Oct. 30 supervisors’ meeting.
The current feasibility study is looking at uses for both the Barnard House and the township administration building on Denton Hollow Road. A public meeting/open house on the feasibility study designs has not yet been scheduled.
Locust Grove Schoolhouse
There will be a volunteer day at the Locust Grove Schoolhouse on June 8, according to Don McKay, chairman of the township’s Historical Committee.
Approximately 15 volunteers will be there to help with exterior work.
Volunteers have been restoring the historic one-room schoolhouse over the past several years. Recently volunteers installed oak flooring.
To read more about the work that’s been done, check out the Historical Committee’s Website at locustgroveschoolhouse.org.
McKay also said the committee is working on restarting the historic talks in the township. In the fall they are hoping to partner with East Bradford and East Marlborough townships to talk about the trolley that ran through the area, he said.
About Monica Fragale
Monica Thompson Fragale is a freelance reporter who spent her life dreaming of being in the newspaper business. That dream came true after college when she started working at The Kennett Paper and, years later The Reporter newspaper in Lansdale and other dailies. She turned to non-profit work after her first daughter was born and spent the next 13 years in that field. But while you can take the girl out of journalism, you can’t take journalism out of the girl. Offers to freelance sparked the writing bug again started her fingers happily tapping away on the keyboard. Monica lives with her husband and two children in Kennett Square.
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