Connect Edgmont is hosting a sunrise hike at Okehocking Preserve on July 15, 2023. You may already be familiar with this gorgeous 180-acre park in Willistown Township, but did you know Okehocking Preserve was once part of the first Native American Reservation in Pennsylvania?
In 1701, after being increasingly crowded out of their lands in Edgmont Township and surrounding areas, a local band of Lenni Lenape known as the Okehocking petitioned William Penn to set aside land that would belong exclusively to them. By 1703 Penn had moved the Okehocking people to a 500-acre parcel in Willistown Township, just north of the Edgmont Township line.
The “Okehocking Indian Reservation,” or Okehocking Land Grant as it’s sometimes called, was roughly bounded by present-day Garrett Mill Road, West Chester Pike, Plumsock Road and Goshen Road. Delchester Road ran through the land grant. It is thought that the Okehocking chose this plot of land because of a rocky outcropping that resembled their totem, the turtle. “Turtle Rock” still exists today on private property north of the present-day Okehocking Preserve boundary.
Source: Acres of Quakers, John Nagy and Peggy Goulding (2006)
The Okehocking people used the land grant for summer hunting and fishing until around 1737, when they migrated to the less populated Shamokin area on the Swatara Creek in east-central PA. Per the original land grant agreement, the vacated Okehocking Indian Reservation land reverted back to the Proprietor and was granted to neighboring landowners, Amos and Mordecai Yarnell.
In 1924 the Pennsylvania Historical Commission and the Chester County Historical Society erected a monument memorializing the “Okehocking Indian Town.” This marker still stands, just east of the Okehocking Preserve parking lot on West Chester Pike. It reads:
OKEHOCKING
INDIAN TOWN
THE CHIEFS
POKHAIS, SEPOPAWNY
AND MUTTAGOOPPA
WITH THEIR PEOPLE
OF THE UNAMI GROUP
* THEIR TOTEM * THE TORTOISE *
OF THE LENNI-LENAPE OR DELAWARES
WERE MOVED FROM LOWER
RIDLEY AND CRUM CREEKS
BY
WILLIAM PENN
TO A SQUARE TRACT OF 500 ACRES
ON THE NORTH SIDE OF THIS ROAD
EAST OF RIDLEY CREEK,
THE ONLY INDIAN RESERVATION
THE PROPRIETOR EVER ESTABLISHED
1701
MARKED BY
THE PENNSYLVANIA HISTORICAL COMMISSION
AND THE CHESTER COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
1924
More reading:
- Willistown Township’s Okehocking Preserve Page: https://www.willistown.pa.us/facilities/facility/details/Okehocking-Preserve-6
- Adaptation of the original nomination document for placing The Okehocking Indian Land Grant Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places (1993): https://www.livingplaces.com/PA/Chester_County/Willistown_Township/Okehocking_Historic_District.html
- Acres of Quakers, John Nagy and Peggy Goulding (2006)
- Edgmont, The Story of a Township, Jane Levis Carter (1976)
Interested in visiting Okehocking Preserve? Join Connect Edgmont for our sunrise hike on Saturday, July 15th. We’ll leave from the Delchester Road Parking lot at 5:45AM for a 3.3 mile hike. Expect two large hills and gorgeous sunrise views. RSVPs to the Facebook event are appreciated but not required.
Connect Edgmont 