Near the end of the seventeenth century Welsh Quakers settled in this part of Chester County.  They called the area “Uwchlan,” which in Welsh means “upland” or the “land above the valley.”  Soon, German immigrants joined the Welsh.  By 1712 Uwchlan was surveyed and recognized as a township, the first roads were recorded in County road dockets, and the Welsh Quakers had requested their own meeting.  John Cadwalader had moved to Uwchlan in 1711, built a large log house and helped the other residents to organize a worship group.  In 1715, Cadwalader sold his 250 acres, except a small lot which he had granted to the Society of Friends for use as a meeting house and burial ground.  Activities in the rural community revolved around the Uwchlan Meeting House and the Red Lion Inn across the road.By the 1760s much of the land surrounding the village belonged to Dennis Whelen.

    Whelen attempted to develop the village by selling half acre lots and offering one acre for public use for every twenty lots sold.  He planned to name the village “Welsh Pool.”  Dennis Whelen’s hopes for a new village were never realized.  For more than one hundred years the community was known as either Uwchlan Meeting or Red Lion.  In 1826 the post office was established.  Since there were already a few sites in Pennsylvania named “Red Lion” the post office was given the name “Lionville.”  The post office established in the village of Eagle was given the name “Uwchland,” incorrectly adding a “d” to the end of the Welsh name.

 

    Little is known of early schooling in Uwchlan.  The Uwchlan Meeting House served as a school several times in its long history.  A school existed above the village (on Township Line Road) as early as 1774 and below the village (at Route 100 and Worthington Road) as early as 1778.

This lower school was located near the White School which officially opened under that name in 1817.  The White School became the township’s first public school when public education came to the county in 1837.  One-room schools were scattered throughout the township.   

 

For 150 years the township was a small but active farming community with a few pockets of industry, mostly mills along Marsh and Brandywine Creeks.  In 1858 the township divided, creating Uwchlan and Upper Uwchlan Townships.  At the time of the division Uwchlan’s population was around 800.  The rural population remained steady until after the first World War when a decline brought the number to a low of 500.  Beginning in the early 1960s the township experienced a rapid growth with many suburban housing developments replacing the diary farms.  Today Uwchlan Township’s population has surpassed 16,576.

 Cadwalader House
Oldest structure in Uwchlan Township